New Build Lawn

Morning all,

Posted this in another area of the forum but was advised that this may be a better place to post it...

I've just moved into a new build and am wondering what's best to do with the topsoil the builders have left me in the back garden. To my mind (novice gardener), the topsoil looks OK. There are a number of 'hard to break up by hand' clumps about the size of my palm but the rest seems fine and easy to dig through. I've been looking at buying bulk bags of compost to encorporate into the existing soil to improve it a bit but I'm wondering if I need to bother with that. It's been rotavated by the builders so it's not compacted and looks like what I would call soil.

I'm needing to lay around 140m² of turf on what I would call a flat area, no visible falls at eye level. We're in a corner plot and there appears to be a slight fall (no steps, just a slight gradient) from the top of the street but flattens out at my end. For peace of mind I was planning on laying a couple of lengths of gravel trenches parallel to the neighbours fence to catch anything that might flow down to me.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

Hi, a photo will be helpful if possible.

Are you doing all the work yourself?

 

Hi Liz, I will take a few photos tonight and post them here.

Yes planning on doing all the work myself to save costs.

Thanks for taking the time to reply!

 

Don’t know what’s happened here with the repeating photos but these are some photos from tonight.

Any opinions welcome, thank you!

 

Cheers for the photos.
What depth is the soil?

builders have a bit of a name for leaving not the best soil for lawns. It’s very lumpy so would need to be worked at to make it fine.

Normally I would recommend rather than compost a good topsoil content with sand to aid drainage. A lot depends on your depth but a good quality topsoil is hard to beat and has plenty of nutrients To get the grass going be it seed or turf.

if seeding top soil like above if you find a good source will be weed free so no annoying plants popping up. I find compost can be a bit hit or miss regarding weeds.