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Old 13-08-2007, 05:40 AM posted to aus.gardens
Geoff & Heather Geoff & Heather is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Aug 2006
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Default Extremely hard, dry compacted lawn - what to do??

I love the job rotary hoes do :-) We converted a similar sounding area in
Perth into a nice garden by going over with an industrial strength rotary
hoe, then piling on gypsum, another run with the hoe, then chaff and cow
manure followed by another run - then just for good measure a couple of
inches of sand and none more run with the hoe.

But as Kylie says you need to soften the clay a bit first or it will be a
very painful job on the end of the machine :-)

Best of luck - but grow something that needs less water .

Geoff

"0tterbot" wrote in message
...
"Barry Ward" wrote in message
...
Hi all

I live in Beenleigh Qld. I have what was once a lawn in the front of my
house - now it is a completely dead, very hard, dry, compacted soil
surface. I have noticed that when we have gotten some rain over the past
couple of years, what grass was still alive greened up a little but never
actually grew. It seems to me that a complete renovation of the soil is
needed to take advantage of any rain that may eventually come our way.

I read somewhere that you should be able to hand force a screwdriver 3
inches into a lawn . Well, I can't penetrate my ground even one inch with
a screwdriver. It is not rocky - just very hard clay. I have been
considering renting a machine lawn corer - but I suspect that the machine
would not actually be able to core this ground.

Short of using dynamite - does anybody have any suggestions as to what I
could do with this ground to make it even a little bit desirable for
grass seed to grow when/if the rains come? Would a rotary hoe turn it? If
so, what should I do with the broken ground then? Dolomite, fertilizer??

I have an area of around 300 square meters that needs help.

Thanks for any advice from any who have faced a similar situation.

Barry


i think you need to get LOTS of water in there before you can do anything
about it! machinery won't work on rock-hard ground, and nothing else is
going to be effective if the soil is so hard & dry either. after that, you
can begin aerating (which sounds very necessary) & adding organic matter &
anything needed to balance the soil and encourage what it is you want
growing there.

use water on it gradually to soften it up. only water to pooling/run off
each time, then start again the next day. this might take weeks, but that
is all right, because you can use that time to think about if you want
another grass lawn or if something else is a better idea (one suspects the
latter ;-) something like dichondra, or even a very tough grass or perhaps
a herb lawn (e.g. thyme), might be a better idea than traditional "lawn".
(expanding the beds around the lawn is also a good idea, but that's not
exactly what you asked ;-)

like len said, use grey water. we use our washing machine water on the
garden, & this way we have a lot available & it gets used twice (sometimes
3 times if we had a shower in it first g)

but do think about it. i haven't got a problem with lawn (particularly
since they're so happy with grey water) because some of them can be really
good (even if falling out of favour lately), BUT, there really isn't a
point to it at all if it's just going to die. choose something that can
still live and look good in the conditions that you have.
kylie