Help...what shall we do, our 'garden' needs it's topsoil back.

Hello all.

I hope there is someone who can me. I apologise in advance for what maybe a long'ish post. I have, I'm afraid no knowledge of gardening what so ever.

We have a place in France and in April 2008 started to do the foundations for a house.

The grass is like field grass not bowling green type grass. Before we started it looked like this.




Now we are not doing that. But what we did do was skim the site of it's topsoil, or at least some of it. I would guess at maybe 6-8" of at least 1/2 acre, maybe a bit less, and put the excess soil in a huge pile in the corner. It had rained continually for days.




That was that. We then returned to our place in August 2008 and, of course, it had grown, but I was gob smacked with what had grown on/in the pile of earth. Goodness knows what we have disturbed. The area we skimmed was sparcely covered with weeds, maybe wild flowers etc, and stones. It has been mowed in the picture below.







We want to put the pile of topsoil back over where it was and have it has grass again. We were thinking of hiring a machine to scoop back the soil, spread it out, rake it and seed it. Will this suffice. I know it's quite a mammoth job, but needs doing as we can't leave it like it because it's our garden.

We don't want a perfect lawn and we are quite happy with the original grass. We are going out in Feb 09 to plant a hedge. We then hope to return again at Easter to concentrate more on the skimmed area.

What would be the easiest, cheapest and most successful way in acheiving this?

Thanks all for taking the time to read my post and sorry the photo's are a bit big. I will master photobucket one day.

Ysatis.

 

If I was doing it myself I would hire a tracked-digger and a dumper truck. Fill the dumper with a load, tip it in piles evenly distributed across the site, then use the digger to move the piles about a bit, then use the bulldozer-blade on the digger to get it all level. Running around with the tracked digger will compress it down reasonably, but at 6" - 8" I wouldn't be too worried [as compared to filling in a hole where it would be important to compress as much as possible, otherwise it would sink, noticeably, later on].

Try not to do the work when it is wet as that will make the place into a mud bath, which will destroy the soil's open structure.

For seedling using a mechanical seeder I split open a large bag (fertiliser bag or some such) and lay it on the garage floor, then fill with grass seed and run over the bag precisely from side-to-side a set number of times (multiples of ten is good!) until I can see a decent amount of seed on the bag, then I pick up the bag and "pour" the seed into a container that I can weigh. Then the weight divided by the width of the bag, divided by the number of "passes" gives me the weight of seed for one pass of that bag's width.

Compare that to the sowing rate (there is a length to area conversion required there!! using the width of the machine) and that will tell you the number of passes you need. You need to adjust the mechanical seeding machine so that you make at least two passes, which you should do at right-angles to each other - so first pass in adjcant rows from end-to-end and then the next one in "columns" from side-to-side. That way you are less likely to have spots that you missed.

Personally I would prefer 3 or 4 passes (because I can then overlap the wheel marks from the first pass in each direction too).

Half an acre is quite a bit, and I agree with JWK that getting the local farmer to do it would be a good plan.

I prefer to sow grass seed in the Autumn - it gets nice and green before the winter, and then grows strongly in the spring, whereas if you sow in the Spring the grass seed will have strong competition from the weeds :(

Part of your choice of grass will depend on how often you will be around to cut it. For a "fine lawn" you need to cut once a week (and preferably twice in the spring when it is growing particularly strongly). But you can have a nice stripey lawn, and you will need a "fine lawn" seed mix (which will exclude Ryegrass)

If you want something tougher - so that kids can play football on it, for example, then you need a seed mixture that is appropriate (which will include Ryegrass).

If it is a holiday home and you will often be absent for long periods then you might consider getting the local farmer to take a hay crop [here in the UK that would be Early June, probably somewhat earlier in France??] and then the grass will be rough, but easily manageable, for the rest of the summer; plus you will get a few Euros from the local farmer, or barter some Wine or Eggs!

 

"especially if you're not around all the time to tend the plot."

Ah ... another point then ... I forgot to mention that Spring sown is more likely to need irrigation, in its first year.

 

Thanks everyone for your good advice.

We do have a local farmer but have yet to make our aquaintance and it would be an idea to approach him. If my shyness gets the better of me, I think we would hire a suitable machine from our (very) local motoculture.

Would we need to do anything to the skimmed area that has growth on it now, or will it die off or be restrained by just putting back the pile of topsoil? Obviously removing the plantation from the piles as they are put back.

I think hiring a mechanical seeder would be easiest.

Would it be more beneficial to perhaps leave this job to October next year, doing the whole thing in one go? Is there a chance that at that time of year we wouldn't have to worry so much about irrigation through 'it's' first summer.

Kind regards,
Ysatis.

 

"Would we need to do anything to the skimmed area that has growth on it now, or will it die off or be restrained by just putting back the pile of topsoil? Obviously removing the plantation from the piles as they are put back."

The "bulk" of the weed plants are likely to get in your way a bit, and possibly their roots too. Might be worth killing it off with Glyphosphate (if you are not adverse to chemicals) and, either way, cut the tops off with a strimmer or somesuch (if you use Glyphosphate then give it time to work first and no need to cut the tops off, once yellow, until closer to when you will start - if next Autumn you'll have to kill off again - about 2 - 4 weeks before you want to move the soil would be good).

Moving the soil in Summer would more likely provide dry working conditions - and time for the soil to settle before sowing in the Autumn. You'll need to keep the weeds down though ... again, you could spray them off once they appear, or time the leveliing to be not more than a month before sowing - what weeds appear should be pretty easy to cope with.

If the Farmer is doing it he can level, harrow, and seed in three separate passes - all on the same day even - which would make for a good outcome.

A ladder, loaded with enough blocks to provide some weight, and hauled with ropes will help get the surface smooth - if your skills with a Digger turn out to be a bit hit-and-miss!!

"Would it be more beneficial to perhaps leave this job to October next year, doing the whole thing in one go? Is there a chance that at that time of year we wouldn't have to worry so much about irrigation through 'it's' first summer."

Its going to look a bit unsightly until then ... but if that's not a problem then I think it would be the better choice. if you plant it in the Spring then you will definitely have to water it during the Summer - unless you are blessed with a ghastly wet Summer. Sowing in the Autumn will avoid the need to summer watering unless it is desperately dry there - and even so, I doubt a drought will kill the grass, so it should recover. Not 100% sure on that, so having a neighbour who could water it, in extremis, if you are absent would be a good fallback.

Given the choice I would always sow grass in the Autumn (i.e. late September here in UK)

 

I suggest the same method as kristen,

Only exception is that I learnt my machine operating on a 10 ton machine without dozer blade and as sutch never use the dozer blade on small machines for grading, Normally the grading bucket to spread roughly I then use the back of the bucket to produce the final level tracking back wards so as to leave no marks. With practice the right level of compaction is achievable followed by a very light rake and seed.

If you've not used a machine before then get someone in for this job, If the farmer cant help he is sure to no a contractor who can. Grading a large area takes skill and as a first attempt with a machine you risk making more of a mess than you started with.

Here is a small job I did this year:

 

Nice little rockery you've made at the front too Pro! :D

 

Of course you could do the sensible thing and get someone professional in, but...........you could go out and have some fun with a big tractor.

 

"you could go out and have some fun with a big tractor"

Definitely!! Here's me at play:



more details of this project (on my blog)

 

Sorry, can't resist ... me playing again, last year:




(more pictures in my blog)

 

I am sooooooooooo envious:yho::yho::yho::yho:

 

envy is a terrible thing...........................your stripes are wonky.



hastily grabbing coat and heading for door........don`t kick me.