Poor drainage of clay soil - will a lawn grow?

We recently moved into a house with a garden. The house is about 2/3 of the way down a steepish hill, our right hand neighbour's garden is about 2 ft higher than ours, the left hand neighbours garden is about 4-5ft lower. When we moved in, the right hand side had a 6ft wide raised border (with dry stone wall) and we noticed the lawn was boggy alongside this. There are two big conifers in the border (50ft high) and the boggy area is alongside these - so spanned an area about 4ft by 2ft. We have taken down the wall and reduced the border to about 3ft, replacing the wall. But.....the ground (clay soil) is very wet, if you dig down 6" it fills with water. The question is, what should I do given that I have no money? Can I plant grass and will it grow? To make matters worse, it gets only dappled sun (thanks to those conifers). Any suggestions gratefully received, thank you..

 

Kathy

it does sound very wet if the water table is 6 inches down

you may have to think about how to improve drainage

if you can't get grass to grow, try shady grass or failing that sedge, rushes or ferns, all of which like some moisture in the soil

John