Clay soil garden woes
 

I have a 1970's house in Staffordshire. It's rear garden is
rectangular and only 15m by 10m at a guess. It's slightly sloping
away from the house and large patio. All winter trhe lawn has been
spongy with squelching and surface water. When it rains alot pools of
water form in the edge of the lawn.

When I dug down 1.5' in the lawn the soil was red and seemed to be
clay. Less than four inces down the soil didn't seem too wet,
however the surface water from around the hole soon drained into the
hole.

The previous owner dig some mushroom compost into the borders which
has elevated them above the level of the lawn by 4 - 6". Theree does
not appear to have been any top soil added to the land prior to the
lawn being laid/seeded.

Looking at my neighbors gardens mine seems slightly lower, I wonder if
this is adding to my drainage problem.

What are my options?



K

"anon" wrote in message
...
I have a 1970's house in Staffordshire. It's rear garden is
rectangular and only 15m by 10m at a guess. It's slightly sloping
away from the house and large patio. All winter trhe lawn has been
spongy with squelching and surface water. When it rains alot pools of
water form in the edge of the lawn.

When I dug down 1.5' in the lawn the soil was red and seemed to be
clay. Less than four inces down the soil didn't seem too wet,
however the surface water from around the hole soon drained into the
hole.

The previous owner dig some mushroom compost into the borders which
has elevated them above the level of the lawn by 4 - 6". Theree does
not appear to have been any top soil added to the land prior to the
lawn being laid/seeded.

Looking at my neighbors gardens mine seems slightly lower, I wonder if
this is adding to my drainage problem.

What are my options?



K
Regular aeration and scarifying to keep the top soil open also a top
dressing every autumn to bring up your levels .
As a last option you could add gypsum to the soil which would alter the soil
structure and make the clay less heavy

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 08:39:12 GMT, "pied piper"
wrote:

gypsum

I'm a non gardener, could you tell me what Gypsum is?

Do you think it is worth putting a few inches of top soil over the who
garden? Would this be expensive?


K

Do you think it is worth putting a few inches of top soil over the who
garden? Would this be expensive?

That's effectively what will happen if you top dress regularly, as Pied
Piper suggested. You don't do it all in one go - you add a little in stages
each autumn. A normal lawn top dressing is a fairly sandy mixture of
consisting of sand, sieved soil and peat/peat substitute or leaf mould. Over
time this will improve the quality of your lawn particularly, I think, if
you were to hollow tine before the top dressing which would remove plugs of
the heavy clay.

If you are looking for a quicker solution, I guess you could start from
scratch. Rotavate the whole area. Double dig to remove any "soil pans" which
could be part of your drainage problem and incorporate lots of manure to
improve the soil structure. Then returf or reseed. You could have a nice
lawn by the autumn, but it would be hard work and relatively expensive.

Ian Keeling wrote:
[...]
You could have a nice lawn by the autumn, but it would be hard work
and relatively expensive.

And if the problem is that the OP's garden is a drainage sink for the
area, it may not work. He may need to put drains in, but that will
only work if there's access to somewhere for them to drain _to_.
First thing to do is probably to find out where the wet is coming
from.

Mike.

First thing to do is probably to find out where the wet is coming
from.


Play your cards right and it 'could' be a Council/Water Authority problem.
If it is, then a long hard battle could be worth while. I have just had a
road surface realigned to prevent flooding, BUT, it was a pair of houses
being flooded, whether you could fight them for a garden, then I think not,
UNLESS, it is affecting the damp course :-)) OR, and this is a near 100%
cert for compensation/remedial work, has recent building taken place?

Mike

In article , anon
writes
I have a 1970's house in Staffordshire. It's rear garden is
rectangular and only 15m by 10m at a guess. It's slightly sloping
away from the house and large patio. All winter trhe lawn has been
spongy with squelching and surface water. When it rains alot pools of
water form in the edge of the lawn.

That describes most of the country atm! ;-)

When I dug down 1.5' in the lawn the soil was red and seemed to be
clay.

Take a small piece of soil and see if you can roll it into a marble. If
it rolls into a marble without crumbling, then it is clay, if you can
roll it into a worm, it is really clayey.

Looking at my neighbors gardens mine seems slightly lower, I wonder if
this is adding to my drainage problem.

What are my options?

Wait until the summer and re-assess.
--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"