New build house garden

Hi - Hello everyone

I'm new to the forum, and fairly new to gardening. I'm hoping peoples experience here will help me not make any stupid mistakes... I've recently moved to a new build house. The garden had two foot of 'topsoil' added after the land had been reclaimed and the top two foot removed, previously it had been a service garage.

The builder had the cabins etc where the back garden is, so the ground under the top soil is rock hard. I have been trying to use a long metal spike to aerate the lawn, but its difficult to hammer it in even. There are no bricks and rubble in the top soil though. The soil is fairly heavy in clay and is very waterlogged, so it moves under foot when I walk on it. The area normally has sandy soil that drains well.

The builder recommended doing nothing for a year, and said the soil will bind and start to drain. I'm less than convinced. From peoples experience on here would I be as well to leave it, or consider fitting drainage? Its probably a 10x20m garden so wouldn't want to dig it all up and break it up. Has anyone got any ideas to help it drain without fitting drainage? I just think forking it won't work as the spikes won't get through the rock hard but under the top soil. Someone suggested throwing lots of worms on there to help aerate it.

 

Welcome to GC, Richard

In the first instance, I have to say, I have made (and no doubt will make) "stupid mistakes" on the gardening front Having said that, it is those mistakes that I remember the most and so, least likely to repeat.

Back to your soil: compacted heavy clay! Nightmare I'm also trying to deal with (and the waterlogging is beyond nightmare to totally depressing!).

For me, fitting drainage isn't an option; but, I'm digging in my duck and hen compost as and when I can. Horticultural grit is an option (if you can get those holes deep enough to fill it with!).

I think, in one post, someone suggested using an "auger" ? Not something I'm able to try in a hurry (and I'm working with an area of 1/4 acre).

At the moment, my clay can be penetrated, but, it is heavy, heavy work and I'm just not strong enough to get deep into it. In the summer, when it is baked, I will stand no chance! So, now is the better time to try and make some inroads.

I'm still a beginner, so the above is advice I've gleened from my relatively short time here.

Just bear in mind that we have had an exceptionally wet Autumn/Winter which will make the problem seem worse this time.

I have no doubt those with more experience will be along to offer you their advice.

 

Good evening Richard,
welcome to Gardeners Corner. I'm sure many members will be able to give advice and encouragement in the early days and as Mum said, it's been a lousy Winter so none of our gardens look in their best condition right now,
look forward to seeing your progress over the Spring and Summer though,
Jenny namaste

 

Hello and welcome

The exact opposite will happen. The clay will further compact (if possible) until it is as packed as it can get. Then you might as well have a concrete floor as far as drainage is concerned.

Assuming the waterlogging problem is only because of the clay soil, and not because of the topography of your patch, then I reckon loosening the clay will be enough to sort out the drainage problem. If your garden is naturally in a dip or something so it is always going to collect run-off water from surrounding ground, then its a different problem, but as you've said its compacted clay, lets assume for now that that alone is the problem.

I'd say, if you know with a degree of certainty that there are no pipes or cables within 2ft of the surface, and if you can handle a pick axe, then I'd pick axe the whole lot over (I had to do that with part of my garden when I first bought the house, for the same reason, although mine isn't a new build, just very neglected garden before we bought the place).

Once suitably broken up, I'd plough in loads and loads of bulky organic matter (compost, manure, straw etc), and dig it all in, or rotavate if its a larger area. That's will sort the soil out, then you're left with a blank canvass to build your garden on.

 

Aha! Good point!

I recently learned that my waterlogging will happen come what may, due to the history of this land.

 

To add to what Clueless has already said, I'd been inclined to add some sand to the soil as well, it will help keep the clay more 'open'.

With clay Richard, you have your work cut out and it will be hard work, but all the preparation you do now will pay off at a later point.

 

We have a few members here who've tackled the compacted clay problem. One chap has taken the trouble to document his efforts for us in a nice, enjoyable to following thread with lots of photos.

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/improving-clay.21951/

To say the results are impressive and inspirational would be a massive understatement.

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/just-a-view-in-my-garden.3200/

Kudos to PeterS for both the fantastic work, and for sharing the results with us all.

 

IME you need to break up the compaction that the builders have caused. Beggars belief, IMHO, that builders should be allowed to get away with leaving the site in such a state. At least you have no buried rubble which is, sadly, commonplace on new builds.

Traditional farming route to solving this problem would be to "subsoil" the area. That's an often-single sometimes-multiple curled finger-shaped blade which is dragged through the soil. It has an arrow-head on the bottom to "raise" the soil slightly as it is dragged through, but the primary objective is to shatter the soil layers, without mixing them up at all.

I doubt you will be able to grow anything much until this issue is solved, and personally I'd make it the builder's problem by adding it to the snagging list. Get an expert in to give an opinion perhaps? It needs some decent sized equipment, or a lot of hard work if done manually, and unless you can easily get the equipment into your garden and fancy a boy's-toys weekend?!! then I'd make it the builders responsibility.

Just putting drains in won't fix the problem (it may stop surface water collecting, but the plants are going to struggle to grow through that compaction, and will always look knackered and "olden" in their attempts)

 

My house is new too, plonked on a field and like yours compacted in places and prone to waterlogging.

This is what I did. I wanted to know more about the soil so I dug some holes in different parts of the garden, from two (in one case to five) -foot deep and filled them with a foot of water. If the water is gone in three days like mine was then the drainage is probably OK and you'll know how deep you have to go.

Some of the holes: I had to lean on the spade for a while to get it to go down half an inch and then I could scrape a little soil out and I just carried on like that: marking out areas to dig and spending a fixed length of time on it: an hour or two hours, scraping an inch at a time. If even scraping doesn't work then you'll have to try what does: pick axe, small mechanical digger etc. If the water doesn't go in three days then you might need a deep sink hole in the lowest part.

If you can't face doing the whole garden at once then you could either just dig beds or else trenches across the garden, chuck the sub-soil and leave them open to let the frosts, rain and wind break the soil up more. In the spring you can then put some manure down, fill them up with a soil and compost mix and plant something on top. If the drainage experiment didn't work you could put in clay pipes and lead them to a sink hole. But I reckon the main thing is to dig a bed or trench at a time, leave it till the spring, and see how that affects the soil around it and the garden overall before deciding where to go next.

 

Need to be not-compacted underneath the top layer of the lawn though, otherwise lack of drainage will be a problem - moss, and other lawn-issues - I think ?

 

Mea Culpa. I read it as 2 INCHES. Sorry about that ...