Hello!

hello and welcome to GC Gillypetunia.

 

Hello

I am as new to this website as I am to gardening but given time I am sure I will get around both. My garden is currently a bit of a building site to say the least. 6 conifers have been removed along with an enormous amount of earth well clay really. The tree stumps were grinded and I kept the mulch. I am very keen to recycle and reuse all thats come out, and would love to here from anyone who would let me know what if anything I can do with the mountain of clay I have thats full of stones and gravel and various bits of the building material. Can it be salvaged to use as top soil instead of paying to get rid of it and buying new. I would be grateful for any help you can offer. many thanks.

 

Interesting choice of name, Ms Manure! :D

Like the idea of removing 6 conifers!!

I moved into a new house a yearor so ago, like quite a few people on here, and I know what a nightmare it can be.

What I'd do is to get loads of "soil conditioner", basically the recycled stuff from you local recycling centre, or tip, and dig it in, along with some of the less enormous bits of stone you've unearthed. That should improve your drainage, which will mean that you don't have such a sea of mud when it rains a lot, and it won't be hard-baked clay when it doesn't rain for weeks...

Clay is a good start for gardening, as it retains things, like water and minerals, you just want to encourage it to let go of some of them... :rolleyes:

You can use some of your mulch in opening up the soil this way.

Wouldn't be a bad move to get some top soil too - if you can find a reliable local source, that would be best - big firms charge the earthbut little local firms are generally more reasonable. Best if you can get somebody local to advise on that, as you don't want rubbish soil brought in....

Another thing we did was to get a massive load of spent mushroom compost and dug that in too. The plants loved it and grew VERY well! :D