Yes our neighbours do a lot of work on their garden, so I will see if I can check with them. I think we're definitely on clay, but I'm not sure it's very hard clay. They might have an idea though.
I thought I'd give an update. Our neighbours have confirmed it's a clay and mainly alkaline soil. We've also discovered that the wait time for our friend with the digger is several months, and as I was hoping to get the garden done to a basic level by the summer, we're going to have a go at doing the work ourselves.
So the good thing about that is we'll save a fair bit of money - hopefully! The bad is it's going to be very hard work and we're very inexperienced with this type of thing. We're thinking along the lines of hiring a turf stripper. Is this a good idea when the garden is bumpy with possible submerged rubble? We obviously wouldn't want to break the equipment.
In a way I like the idea of completely turning the garden around ourselves, but am just hoping that it is something we can actually manage.
Eventual plans are to possibly have a workshop at the bottom of the garden, where the concrete is now. I had the idea of using native hedging to screen off this area, and also so that we had shelter and food for the birds. However, in order to leave light for the shed area we wouldn't be able to have the hedging too tall. Does hedging like hawthorn and blackthorn still flower and produce berries if it is kept pruned to between 1.5 - 2 metres in height?
Posts
Thanks Topbird.
Yes our neighbours do a lot of work on their garden, so I will see if I can check with them. I think we're definitely on clay, but I'm not sure it's very hard clay. They might have an idea though.
Lucid
I thought I'd give an update. Our neighbours have confirmed it's a clay and mainly alkaline soil. We've also discovered that the wait time for our friend with the digger is several months, and as I was hoping to get the garden done to a basic level by the summer, we're going to have a go at doing the work ourselves.
So the good thing about that is we'll save a fair bit of money - hopefully! The bad is it's going to be very hard work and we're very inexperienced with this type of thing. We're thinking along the lines of hiring a turf stripper. Is this a good idea when the garden is bumpy with possible submerged rubble? We obviously wouldn't want to break the equipment.
In a way I like the idea of completely turning the garden around ourselves, but am just hoping that it is something we can actually manage.
Eventual plans are to possibly have a workshop at the bottom of the garden, where the concrete is now. I had the idea of using native hedging to screen off this area, and also so that we had shelter and food for the birds. However, in order to leave light for the shed area we wouldn't be able to have the hedging too tall. Does hedging like hawthorn and blackthorn still flower and produce berries if it is kept pruned to between 1.5 - 2 metres in height?
Lucid