I wonder if someone can advise me please?

I've just had my large, derelict front garden levelled and rotivated,
leaving me, I'd hoped with a great expanse of beautiful soil to start
cultivating.

Trouble is, now that the matted grass and weeds have been removed, I see
that the soil is incredibly stony. Could someone advise what the best thing
to do here is please?

The plan is to have a pond, four vegetable beds, a couple of flower beds,
and the rest lawn.

Do I try to get rid of the stones? This seems like it would be a
never-ending task. The ground is quite compacted and I suspect there's more
stoniness beneath. Or would it be an idea to buy in a load of top soil? As I
said, it's quite a big area - probably 20 metres by 25 metres - so it would
need a lot of soil. But would it solve the problem anyway?

Would it be feasible to think in terms of building raised beds for the veg
and just grass-seeding the rest? Though I presume it would be very hard to
mow if it was this stony?

Sorry for all these questions, but I'm really unsure what the best option
is.

Cheers

Clarissa

On 6/5/05 3:22 pm, in article ,
"ClarissaGG" wrote:

I wonder if someone can advise me please?

I've just had my large, derelict front garden levelled and rotivated,
leaving me, I'd hoped with a great expanse of beautiful soil to start
cultivating.

Trouble is, now that the matted grass and weeds have been removed, I see
that the soil is incredibly stony. Could someone advise what the best thing
to do here is please?

The plan is to have a pond, four vegetable beds, a couple of flower beds,
and the rest lawn.

Do I try to get rid of the stones? This seems like it would be a
never-ending task. The ground is quite compacted and I suspect there's more
stoniness beneath. Or would it be an idea to buy in a load of top soil? As I
said, it's quite a big area - probably 20 metres by 25 metres - so it would
need a lot of soil. But would it solve the problem anyway?

Would it be feasible to think in terms of building raised beds for the veg
and just grass-seeding the rest? Though I presume it would be very hard to
mow if it was this stony?

Sorry for all these questions, but I'm really unsure what the best option
is.

Depending on how large the area is, is it feasible to have the pond and beds
and then pave the rest?
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

"Sacha" wrote in message
. uk...
On 6/5/05 3:22 pm, in article ,
"ClarissaGG" wrote:

I wonder if someone can advise me please?

Depending on how large the area is, is it feasible to have the pond and
beds
and then pave the rest?

Well we could, but there's already a gravel drive alongside the garden so it
would be nice to have some more greenery.

On 6/5/05 3:49 pm, in article ,
"ClarissaGG" wrote:


"Sacha" wrote in message
. uk...
On 6/5/05 3:22 pm, in article ,
"ClarissaGG" wrote:

I wonder if someone can advise me please?

Depending on how large the area is, is it feasible to have the pond and
beds
and then pave the rest?

Well we could, but there's already a gravel drive alongside the garden so it
would be nice to have some more greenery.

You could still have that in pots and tubs, half-barrels, raised brick
planters, old sinks, stone troughs etc. Or you could clear certain areas of
stones, feed those bits of the soil and do 'pocket planting' in among the
paving. Some of the lower growing herbs are beautiful when done this way
because as you walk past them and brush against them they release their
scents. As the ground is stony it may well be that it's sharply drained so
depending on where you live (which it would help us to know) you could grow
things like the many varieties of Salvias or have a low Rosemary hedge up
the side of your drive. Think of this as an opportunity and not a problem
and just think - no grass mowing! Yes, I know - I'm a very unconvincing
Pollyanna!
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

ClarissaGG wrote:
I've just had my large, derelict front garden levelled and rotivated,
leaving me, I'd hoped with a great expanse of beautiful soil to start
cultivating.

Trouble is, now that the matted grass and weeds have been removed, I see
that the soil is incredibly stony. Could someone advise what the best thing
to do here is please?

What sort of stones? What sort of soil? (approximately) where are you?

"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
ClarissaGG wrote:
I've just had my large, derelict front garden levelled and rotivated,
leaving me, I'd hoped with a great expanse of beautiful soil to start
cultivating.

Trouble is, now that the matted grass and weeds have been removed, I see
that the soil is incredibly stony. Could someone advise what the best
thing to do here is please?

What sort of stones? What sort of soil? (approximately) where are you?

What sort of stones? Mm! Smallish pebbles and bit of broken rock rather than
great lumps of concrete left over from building work.

We're in Berkshire. The soil is clay, though couldn't tell you much more
about it at the moment.

ClarissaGG wrote:
"Chris Bacon" wrote in message...
ClarissaGG wrote:

I've just had my large, derelict front garden levelled and rotivated,
leaving me, I'd hoped with a great expanse of beautiful soil to start
cultivating.

Trouble is, now that the matted grass and weeds have been removed, I see
that the soil is incredibly stony. Could someone advise what the best
thing to do here is please?

What sort of stones? What sort of soil? (approximately) where are you?

What sort of stones? Mm! Smallish pebbles and bit of broken rock rather than
great lumps of concrete left over from building work.

We're in Berkshire. The soil is clay, though couldn't tell you much more
about it at the moment.

Once you've got grass established, I can't see stones being a
problem. What sort of pond? One with a liner? You can "blind"
the soil with sand before laying it. Vegetables and flowers?
I've seen some hideously stony ground, more like soil and
shards of slate, in the S.W., very productive. Perhaps it's
a non-problem, especially if you pick out larger stones as
you go? (put the larger around the border of your ground, c.f.
"acre stones"). Is your soil "chalky"?

"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
ClarissaGG wrote:
"Chris Bacon" wrote in message...
ClarissaGG wrote:

I've just had my large, derelict front garden levelled and rotivated,
leaving me, I'd hoped with a great expanse of beautiful soil to start
cultivating.

Trouble is, now that the matted grass and weeds have been removed, I see
that the soil is incredibly stony. Could someone advise what the best
thing to do here is please?

What sort of stones? What sort of soil? (approximately) where are you?

What sort of stones? Mm! Smallish pebbles and bit of broken rock rather
than great lumps of concrete left over from building work.

We're in Berkshire. The soil is clay, though couldn't tell you much more
about it at the moment.

Once you've got grass established, I can't see stones being a
problem. What sort of pond? One with a liner? You can "blind"
the soil with sand before laying it. Vegetables and flowers?
I've seen some hideously stony ground, more like soil and
shards of slate, in the S.W., very productive. Perhaps it's
a non-problem, especially if you pick out larger stones as
you go? (put the larger around the border of your ground, c.f.
"acre stones"). Is your soil "chalky"?

Maybe it IS a non-problem, Chris! I suppose I'm thinking that mowing grass
on stony soil might be a bit sort of bumpy. But perhaps the stones settle
down once the grass comes through?

The pond isn't a worry. I know there are various ways of protecting the
liner with sand and newspaper etc.

Thanks for the help.

C.

"ClarissaGG" wrote in message
...

"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
ClarissaGG wrote:
"Chris Bacon" wrote in message...
ClarissaGG wrote:

I've just had my large, derelict front garden levelled and rotivated,
leaving me, I'd hoped with a great expanse of beautiful soil to start
cultivating.

Trouble is, now that the matted grass and weeds have been removed, I
see that the soil is incredibly stony. Could someone advise what the
best thing to do here is please?

What sort of stones? What sort of soil? (approximately) where are you?

What sort of stones? Mm! Smallish pebbles and bit of broken rock rather
than great lumps of concrete left over from building work.

We're in Berkshire. The soil is clay, though couldn't tell you much more
about it at the moment.

Once you've got grass established, I can't see stones being a
problem. What sort of pond? One with a liner? You can "blind"
the soil with sand before laying it. Vegetables and flowers?
I've seen some hideously stony ground, more like soil and
shards of slate, in the S.W., very productive. Perhaps it's
a non-problem, especially if you pick out larger stones as
you go? (put the larger around the border of your ground, c.f.
"acre stones"). Is your soil "chalky"?

Maybe it IS a non-problem, Chris! I suppose I'm thinking that mowing grass
on stony soil might be a bit sort of bumpy. But perhaps the stones settle
down once the grass comes through?

The pond isn't a worry. I know there are various ways of protecting the
liner with sand and newspaper etc.

Thanks for the help.

C.


You'll have to rake off the stones if you seed, less important if you turf.

--
Tumbleweed

email replies not necessary but to contact use;
tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com

"ClarissaGG" wrote in message
...

"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
ClarissaGG wrote:
I've just had my large, derelict front garden levelled and rotivated,
leaving me, I'd hoped with a great expanse of beautiful soil to start
cultivating.

Trouble is, now that the matted grass and weeds have been removed, I see
that the soil is incredibly stony. Could someone advise what the best
thing to do here is please?

What sort of stones? What sort of soil? (approximately) where are you?

What sort of stones? Mm! Smallish pebbles and bit of broken rock rather
than great lumps of concrete left over from building work.

We're in Berkshire. The soil is clay, though couldn't tell you much more
about it at the moment.

I'm in Berkshire as well, it must be a feature of the county!(:-)

Of course being in the Thames valley would make the ground rather clayey!

I do have two areas of grass, I would hesitate to call them 'lawns', neither
of which give much trouble with mowing, the mower only gets damaged when I
miss the edges of the grass areas and go over the 'flower' beds!

--
alan

reply to alan(dot)holmes27(at)virgin(dot)net

On Fri, 06 May 2005 14:22:37 GMT, "ClarissaGG"
wrote:

I wonder if someone can advise me please?

I've just had my large, derelict front garden levelled and rotivated,
leaving me, I'd hoped with a great expanse of beautiful soil to start
cultivating.

Trouble is, now that the matted grass and weeds have been removed, I see
that the soil is incredibly stony. Could someone advise what the best thing
to do here is please?


Not necessarily appropriate for lawns or veggies, but Beth Chatto's
Gravel Garden (published by Frances Lincoln, 2000) will give you hope
and maybe some ideas. Her 'soil' was mostly flint pebbles and sand.
Try your local library.


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

Chris Hogg wrote:
On Fri, 06 May 2005 14:22:37 GMT, "ClarissaGG"

wrote:

I wonder if someone can advise me please?

I've just had my large, derelict front garden levelled and
rotivated,
leaving me, I'd hoped with a great expanse of beautiful soil to
start
cultivating.

Trouble is, now that the matted grass and weeds have been removed,
I
see that the soil is incredibly stony. Could someone advise what
the
best thing to do here is please?


Not necessarily appropriate for lawns or veggies, but Beth Chatto's
Gravel Garden (published by Frances Lincoln, 2000) will give you
hope
and maybe some ideas. Her 'soil' was mostly flint pebbles and sand.
Try your local library.

And in any case, it grew grass and weeds well enough, so don't worry.
If you can grow good weeds, you can grow a good garden. Add as much
well-rotted organic matter as you can get to improve the
water-retentive capacity, of course.

--
Mike.

"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
...
Chris Hogg wrote:
On Fri, 06 May 2005 14:22:37 GMT, "ClarissaGG"



Not necessarily appropriate for lawns or veggies, but Beth Chatto's
Gravel Garden (published by Frances Lincoln, 2000) will give you
hope
and maybe some ideas. Her 'soil' was mostly flint pebbles and sand.
Try your local library.

And in any case, it grew grass and weeds well enough, so don't worry.
If you can grow good weeds, you can grow a good garden. Add as much
well-rotted organic matter as you can get to improve the
water-retentive capacity, of course.

--
Mike.


Thanks Mike and Chris, and all the others. I feel a lot better about this
now, and am even looking forward to the challenge.

Famous last words!

C.

"ClarissaGG" wrote in
:



Do I try to get rid of the stones? This seems like it would be a
never-ending task. The ground is quite compacted and I suspect there's
more stoniness beneath. Or would it be an idea to buy in a load of top
soil? As I said, it's quite a big area - probably 20 metres by 25
metres - so it would need a lot of soil. But would it solve the
problem anyway?

Would it be feasible to think in terms of building raised beds for the
veg and just grass-seeding the rest? Though I presume it would be very
hard to mow if it was this stony?



Just to say that I live just down the hill from a gravel quarry, and have
incredibly stony soil. I don't have any problems mowing my lawns - as
someone said, once the lawn has got established, it makes a sort of mat
over the top of the pebbles anyway, so you only need to worry if you have
big chunks sticking up several inches - and those can usually be either
squished in with a boot (small scale) or rolled (large scale).

In the beds, I would heartily recommend loads of mulch on top (compost,
manure, grass clippings, whatever you've got) and where you can, plant
smaller plants into the mulch and let the roots dig their own way into the
subsoil, rather than you digging up the stony stuff which knackers your
back and your spade and doesn't give the plants such a good start off
anyway.

You'll find your beds start off looking rather raised with all the organic
matter, but as the worms do the digging for you the beds will level off and
start to look less barrow-moundish and more gardenly.

Keep the making of big holes for large shrubs or trees to where you really
need them is what I do.

Victoria
--
gardening on a north-facing hill
in South-East Cornwall
--