On May 31, 11:36*am, "Bob F" wrote:
Scooby99 wrote:
Hi – I am a gardening novice and I would very much welcome some advice
re laying some new turf.

Our back garden is very difficult to access (down steps etc). I have
recently removed an area of *stone chips (which were sitting on
membrane) which was laid many years ago and we want to extend our
existing lawn to cover this area. Unfortunately, the quality of the
soil under this area is poor - only one weed has grown in the exposed
soil it in nearly 3 weeks !

I know the ideal would be to remove 3” to 4” the existing topsoil and
replace with new soil, but due to the access issues and the fact that
this would means transporting perhaps 2 tones of soil off site and
bringing 2 tones of new soil on site, this is a problem.

Is there some sort of soil treatment (via watering can, granules etc)
I could apply to the existing soil to re-vitalise it before turfing,
rather than having to remove it.

Many thanks for any help you can give.

How do you know the soil is no good? No weeds means nothing if there were no
weed seeds.

You can certainly add compost and/or starter fertilizer before seeding.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Agree. We can't see or evaluate the soil from here.
If it is poor, then how you improve it depends on what
it's lacking. Tilling in compost is never a bad idea, but
is a lot of work and if the soil is OK, not necessary.