"JoeSpareBedroom" wrote:
"Sheldon" wrote:
NickGrey wrote:

I've recently moved into a house with a largish garden and am looking
to landscape a 2 acre paddock alongside.

The paddock has 1 large trench down it, around 4ft deep and 12ft wide
running about 100 yds. It make mowing and groundcare a nightmare as my
tractor feels like its going to tip if I drive along it and misses
bits if I drive across it. The rest of the field also has shallower
channels/undulations of around 1ft deep by 10ft wide, which cause
problems.

Maybe the undulations were man-made to increase the surface area, but
in any case I would like to level it out but don't know where to
start.

I've got an old JCB digger and a tractor and trailer, but I would
imagine I would need literally hundreds of tons of topsoil to level
it.

I considered getting a power harrow for the undulations, would this
work? I can't see much choice but to get topsoil for the large trench
or make it into a pond, but am not keen on a pond there.

That 4' deep 12' wide 300' long ditch is there for a reason... I were
you I'd wait for some heavy rains to see what happens.... I have a
ditch about those dimensions crossing my front yard, about twice a
year it fills to the top and would be great for white water
canoing.... if I filled it in my house could be under water. In fact
this past spring there were some exceptionally heavy rains and my
ditch suffered some heavy erosion, just cost me $3,500 to have it
repaired. The entire lengh needed to be reshaped and its capaicity
increased to more easily accept the volume which is determined by a 4'
diameter culvert further upstream. The entire bed was covered with a
heavy matting and more than 60 cubic yards of stone applied.

Heavy erosion in April, that pipe is the outlet from my french drain.
http://i23.tinypic.com/15nrjad.jpg

Repair was made just two weeks ago
http://i21.tinypic.com/v4tdes.jpg

http://i23.tinypic.com/nevomo.jpg

http://i21.tinypic.com/2h37c7l.jpg

Rained last week so there's some water flowing. They returned the
next morning with a load of topsoil to repair the ruts from their
equipment and they reseeded:
http://i22.tinypic.com/209m2vc.jpg

I think they did a good job, I'm pleased.

That is a trench to be proud of.

I still need to put back the plantings that washed away, I plan to do
that in the spring so I'll have time to see how it holds up to the
winter and spring thaw but I expect it will be fine, the company that
did the job knows what they're doing, this was a piddly nothing job
they slipped in between their commercial work. After watching that
fellow handle that excavator I wouldn't suggest anyone rent one and
try it themself, this guy could handle that machine like a skilled
surgeon, he could pick a pebble with more finess than you can pick
your nose. This was their smallest excavator, they have much larger,
their largest can carry this little one in it's bucket. Anytime I
need this kind of work done I don't even bother calling anyone else.
They've done a number of jobs for me and I always feel I got the best
job at the best price. They do the job right away and finish with
expediency, they have no time to screw around. The owner looked at
the job the afternoon before and the job was begun early the next
morning and completed that day, except for the topsoil and reseeding,
which was completed by noon the following day. I don't like doing
business with outfits that string you along... they do the work, I
pay them, done.