On 17/01/2014 13:34, echinosum wrote:

Martin Brown;997568 Wrote:

The gradual way I suggested is orders of magnitude less work!

I think he's right you know.

What might surprise you to learn is how much material you require to
fill such a depression. Suppose half the area is an average of 2" too
low. Doing it in metric as that's easier, we get
half the lawn = 6m x 9m = 54 sq m
x 0.05m depth material
= 2.7 cu m material
the density of soil is perhaps around 2, so you are talking about at
least 5 tonnes of material.

You might like to redo the above calculation once you have a clearer
measure of the size of the depression.

I once bought two loads of topsoil, which were each 0.7 cu m, to raise
the edge of my front lawn to conceal the edge of the new drive which had
been laid and which had come out a bit higher than the old drive. I was
surprised what little effet this material had once spread out on the
ground. The slope of the edge of my lawn up to the new drive is
therefore steeper than I would like it. I really needed about 3 times as
much to achieve what I wanted. In my case I substantially killed off the
old grass, as it was full of nasty weeds, and reseeded, at least where
topcover was fairly deep. 8 years later it is still the best part of my
front lawn...




Good point. However, I have an excess of soil in another part of the
garden that looks about the right amount. If it's not enough, the
depression will just be less. These days I think you have to try and
work with what you have. Moving heavy stuff in or out gets expensive.
Interesting that Charlie decided on a pond when he realised how much of
it he was going to need. Water is so much cheaper! It must be hell
trying to estimate for landscaping jobs