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Digging up turf for new lawn has lowered height of my garden
icopland
Posts: 2
Hello, I'm delving into the world of gardening for the first time and I've hit upon a snag which I can't find a good answer for googling around, so I was hoping someone here would be able to give me some advice 
Last year I purchased my first home and with it a decent sized garden. The garden was in a terrible state: masses of weeds and brambles and grass so long is was effectively a meadow. Due to other things getting in the way it's taken until this year to deal with it. After killing of the brambles and most of the weeds using glyphosate and then trimming back the grass I concluded it was going to be too much work to tame it and have dug up the turf, clearing it to place new grass seed down. However I'm now uncertain how to proceed.
The issues I'm hoping to get advice on revolve around the fact that in digging up the turf I've lowered ground level by about 150mm. I've got a few concerns about this. First of all, if I don't raise the ground again my garden will be lower than both the gardens on either side. Is this a bad idea? I'm worried the other gardens will then drain into mine, turning it into a puddle. That said, drainage in the area seems good over all and despite recent poor weather I've not seen any water pooling in my garden.
Secondly, one of my neighbours performed the same garden overhaul as me a couple of years ago and put in a hedge along the border between our gardens. In doing so, he also tided up the grass about a meter into my garden so the hedge had room to grow. As his garden and that side of my garden were less chaotic, he managed to tame the grass without cutting up the turf and as such I have a meter wide section of the garden which will be 150mm higher than the rest. This runs the length of the garden which is long and thin--it's eating a meter into the ~6m width--so I'd ideally like to avoid having this section raised. I'm not sure how to deal with it however. One possibility would be to just dig up the raised section but it's close to the hedge and I'm concerned I'll accidentally dig up it's roots. Is that a risk? The hedge is still young less than a meter high.
Both problems can be rectified by simply buying top soil and filling in the area. However, it's approximately 6.6m x 25m, which, at 150mm depth, would mean approximately 25 m^3 of soil, or 40 metric tonne bags. That'd be £3000 which, unfortunately, is out of my budget by about a factor of five.
Is there an approach I can take which will keep my garden as level as possible while keeping costs down and avoiding waterlogging my garden?
Last year I purchased my first home and with it a decent sized garden. The garden was in a terrible state: masses of weeds and brambles and grass so long is was effectively a meadow. Due to other things getting in the way it's taken until this year to deal with it. After killing of the brambles and most of the weeds using glyphosate and then trimming back the grass I concluded it was going to be too much work to tame it and have dug up the turf, clearing it to place new grass seed down. However I'm now uncertain how to proceed.
The issues I'm hoping to get advice on revolve around the fact that in digging up the turf I've lowered ground level by about 150mm. I've got a few concerns about this. First of all, if I don't raise the ground again my garden will be lower than both the gardens on either side. Is this a bad idea? I'm worried the other gardens will then drain into mine, turning it into a puddle. That said, drainage in the area seems good over all and despite recent poor weather I've not seen any water pooling in my garden.
Secondly, one of my neighbours performed the same garden overhaul as me a couple of years ago and put in a hedge along the border between our gardens. In doing so, he also tided up the grass about a meter into my garden so the hedge had room to grow. As his garden and that side of my garden were less chaotic, he managed to tame the grass without cutting up the turf and as such I have a meter wide section of the garden which will be 150mm higher than the rest. This runs the length of the garden which is long and thin--it's eating a meter into the ~6m width--so I'd ideally like to avoid having this section raised. I'm not sure how to deal with it however. One possibility would be to just dig up the raised section but it's close to the hedge and I'm concerned I'll accidentally dig up it's roots. Is that a risk? The hedge is still young less than a meter high.
Both problems can be rectified by simply buying top soil and filling in the area. However, it's approximately 6.6m x 25m, which, at 150mm depth, would mean approximately 25 m^3 of soil, or 40 metric tonne bags. That'd be £3000 which, unfortunately, is out of my budget by about a factor of five.
Is there an approach I can take which will keep my garden as level as possible while keeping costs down and avoiding waterlogging my garden?
0
Posts
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I'm just planning on just sticking down some grass seed and adding a similar hedge to the other side of my garden. I'll probably want to do more with it in the future but it'll probably won't be too much as I want to keep it as easy to maintain as possible. Paving would be easier of course, but I like the idea of having a grass lawn more. The hedge I was less fussed about, but since I've got a hedge on one side it seemed untidy to not have it all the way round haha
@micearguers
At the moment I've just got it in a pretty hefty pile down the bottom of the garden. Planning on disposing of it, or possibly attempting to compost it depending on if that's not going to be too much effort.
I've done a bit more shopping around and I've found a place nearby that does a tonne bag of top soil at £50 rather than the £75 I was previous pricing at. I'm considering buying enough to mostly fill in the drop (perhaps 100mm rather than the full 150mm drop) for say a third of the garden and leaving the rest until next year when my budget will hopefully be a little less tight. Reckon that might be the best approach?
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Second, seeding a lawn, though cheap can be difficult. Birds love the seed, it's difficult to spread it evenly and weeds grow up at the same time as the grass. A better alternative (IMO) is turf - a (real) grass mat from your local Homebase or many other suppliers. It can be got cheap, but make sure your not buying the local farmers meadow.
Simply lay it on a flat surface and keep it wet until established. It's much easier than carpet to cut to size and you can literally tear and dump bits in tricky shapes and corners. it will increase the height of the lawn, which you want, and give you a weed free uniform finish.
If you decide to grow shrubs near hedges, leave some room between hedge and shrub, because you will need to cut the hedge separately or else the shrub and hedge will merge. Shrubs grow at different rates to hedges and both can be a bit manic.
As for your lawn having puddles, don't worry too much. You may even be grateful for pinching your neighbours precious water in our drought like summers. The usual reason lawns puddle is because they are not arieated. All you do is get a harden fork and go over the area (when it's wet is far easier|) digging the prongs in and pulling them out. Do this as close as possible, probably about one set of holes every four inches. For bigger areas you can hire arietors.
Lastly most laws eventually become mixed with weeds - buttercups, daisies, clover.. One can see this as beautiful and simply not worry about it. It all mows!