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Old 15-08-2004, 11:10 PM
Fat Freddy's Cat
 
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Default soggy grass problem

Its a long story, but I'll summarise:

New house with back garden turfed (and then returfed a few months back).
The garden slopes approx 1:10 towards the house and is north facing.
There was an old field drain leaking water at the back door which was
blocked up.
I dug a small trench across the garden at the back door and laid a drain
- covered with pea gravel.

However, the grass is still very squelchy for about 3 or 4 feet before
the drain - even in dry spells, it never seems to dry out.

The grass is now being affected and is not growing as thickly as the
rest of the lawn.

The soil is *very* heavy clay and seems to just sup up water like a
sponge and not let it drain down to the drain I dug.

Is there any hope of me recovering the situation? I have forked the
grass and put some sand down. If I keep doing this, will the sand work
its way into the clay over time and let it drain more freely?

Any advice appreciated.

g.
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Old 15-08-2004, 11:41 PM
atwifa
 
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Is there any hope of me recovering the situation? I have forked the grass
and put some sand down. If I keep doing this, will the sand work its way
into the clay over time and let it drain more freely?


i think there is hope, yes. a good forking (!) every now and again will
work wonders ... but it's long term. be patient. make sure the sand is the
sharp (as opposed to builders') variety. eventually the clay will break up.
i've done this in a few places where clay seemed intractable, and although
i've had to wait a couple of years - with plenty of forking and sand
spreading in that time - the results have been worth the effort


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Old 16-08-2004, 01:45 AM
Fat Freddy's Cat
 
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atwifa wrote:
Is there any hope of me recovering the situation? I have forked the grass
and put some sand down. If I keep doing this, will the sand work its way
into the clay over time and let it drain more freely?



i think there is hope, yes. a good forking (!) every now and again will
work wonders ... but it's long term. be patient. make sure the sand is the
sharp (as opposed to builders') variety. eventually the clay will break up.
i've done this in a few places where clay seemed intractable, and although
i've had to wait a couple of years - with plenty of forking and sand
spreading in that time - the results have been worth the effort



thats heartening - I was aware it might take a few seasons, but I'll
keep at it - just glad to hear it will eventually work.

Thanks for replying.

g.
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Old 16-08-2004, 08:03 PM
aka Robbie
 
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atwifa wrote:

i think there is hope, yes. a good forking (!) every now and again will
work wonders ... but it's long term. be patient.


With you on that one. I moved into a new house and in some places the turf
had been laid on a couple of inches of soil, which I found out, when I dug
to put in a deck, is on a couple of foot of thick clay. The garden drained
very poorly and I had a lot of squeltchy areas.

To start with I used a rotary aerator which puts a couple of hundred holes
per square meter and does it a lot quicker than a fork. This was done every
other month for the first year (along with a good old scarifying to get rid
of the dead/old/weak grass). Along with this a good spreading of earthworms
will help wonders as they help break up the clay and also help aerate the
lawn.

Now I only need to aerate the lawn before the first cut and after the last
cut of the year. The rest of the time the earthworms do the work for me.

Three years on and the lawn drains very well. Even when we had the recent
heavy rains (which left some roads near me flooded) there were no squeltchy
patches.

So a couple of years of hard work and then turning to nature should do the
trick. If not perhaps some wet soil loving plants or trees might help
recover the situation.

Peter


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Old 16-08-2004, 09:32 PM
Fat Freddy's Cat
 
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aka Robbie wrote:
atwifa wrote:


i think there is hope, yes. a good forking (!) every now and again will
work wonders ... but it's long term. be patient.




So a couple of years of hard work and then turning to nature should do the
trick. If not perhaps some wet soil loving plants or trees might help
recover the situation.

Peter




Excellent!

thanks for that.

g.
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