Renovating old, soggy lawn
Rosypink
Posts: 4
Hi! A threefold problem here!
I'm the proud owner of a lovely big garden, I've had it about six months. It's very neglected but has obviously been well loved in the past, but realistically has been large untouched for 2-5 years.
I want to totally redo it, and my first task is creating a new lawn. The area I'll be working on has:::
1. Heavy, compacted clay soil.
2. Standing water. This does drain fairly quickly, but a lot of rain makes a proper lake!
3. Nettles, brambles, weeds, lots of different types of grass.
I'd like to dig it all up, get rid of the current grass, add grit or sand to sort the drainage, and then add grass and flower seeds.
Is this realistic? How would YOU do it? Can I start once the water has drained away? Thank you!
Photo attached ????
I need to keep the pond as it's full of frogspawn!
Last edited: 19 March 2017 20:33:43
Posts
Rosy, if it were me I would move, Joking aside it is a big job, you need to treat it as a long term project and do the work in sections you can manage in the spare time you may have remembering the good old British weather. Make sketches and a plan (a guide, plans can and do alter). Decide which small section you want to work on first, say a place to sit and contemplate the next move and where you can put down some nice pots of flowers to give you heart for the work ahead. The pond needs to be left as you will get Tadpoles then small frogs, one day you will look in the pond they will be gone, they always come back to the same pond the next year and very interesting to watch as well. So the pond renovation after wild life vanishes.
The lawn the biggest job and depends on funds available. You need remove all the grass, stack it upside down in a dark corner and leave for a couple of years you will have the best potting compost ever. It now needs to be dug over, this I would double dig adding in a good compost grit and washed sand as you go. Quite often there are local gardeners who would do this bit for you. For the lawn the best lawn would need around twelve to fifteen inches of topsoil added, once the pan has been broken up and drainage added six to eight inches would be OK, the lawn does need to be raised from what I see in the pictures. Now it is up to you seed or rolls, Garden Centres have reasonable grass rolls with a medium grass or order on line the type you want a soft does not take heavy wear Medium for Children and heavy duty for a football field in the garden dogs cats, keeping wild boar is not good for any grass.
To sow seed the top needs to be well raked all stone lumps of clay and any other bits taken off My last Lawn we riddled the soil added first. Rake it flat then do the gardeners shuffle, wear big flat boots and shuffle up and down the patch compacting it very slightly. Rake again with the back of the rake after checking levels, a long flat lath or plank moved along the patch will show high or low levels. Buy your seed from a good Garden centre read the packets it will tell you what it is best used for, light medium heavy use. then sow as the packet tells you adding a few extra hand fulls for the birds, WATER in and leave, I cut by hand for the first cut then the blades on the mower up for the next couple of cuts, my way is never cut below one inch long, scalping kills a lawn and you are not after a bowling green. Decide what you wish to do first and do it, trying to jump from job to job never works you end up with a complete building site, a bit at a time gives you something to look at and show you are getting there. Good Luck.
Frank.
Thank you Frank!
The photos show just the small area I've decided to start on, round the pond only! It's so boggy I can't look at it any more, believe me, I definitely considered moving!
Thank you for the thorough advice, I can't wait to get started. I have a five year old child, so will need heavy wearing grass I think for when the whole class comes round.
Great advice, thanks again.
WHOA UP Rosy, A five year old child and ponds do not go together. A child died a couple of years back in three inches of water, they had fallen face forward into it after mother took a phone call. You need to heavy net the pond or fence it securely my way as I did with the Grandchildren was fill it in and bedding plant it, better safe than sorry. Children and water do not mix.
A medium wear grass is what you need, the whole class will not be around every day. You can make the lawn around the pond or ponds I can see, one of them looks very dangerous for children, if they fell in you would not see them.
Why not make over the whole as a lawn then at some future date replace the pond. You could get rid of the existing ponds and Put a half barrel pond in with water plants and a wire mesh fitted to the rim of the barrel the frogs would came back to that. That area needs raising in any case.
I would say to all new gardeners, gardens can be dangerous places for children, the tools we use the chemicals we use I try to be none chemical although some is a must, lawns need feed and weed all my years gardening taught me that, a rethink is needed Rosy this time with a five year old or at times several, inquisitive adventurous little mites and you cannot keep an eye on them every minute of the time.
Frank.
Definitely meshing the pond, no doubt about it, thank you for your concern.
There's just one pond, the other one is the lake of water that forms when it rains!
How would you take up the grass? Cut it into sections and get under it with a spade?
Rosy, it depends on how much old grass to remove, if you can manage it cut the grass with the spade into square sods around a foot square to eighteen inches, easy to handle, lift one edge with the spade then lowering the spade down push through under the sod, this will cut through the sod just below root level that should give you a sod about an inch and a half thick, doing it that way makes it easy to stack in a corner for a lovely loam is a year os so. Time and Patience is much needed in gardening. If there is a lot then hire a cutter for a day, this will cut the grass sod at the correct level and the better ones roll it up, normally though they cut the lawn into strips and you chop it into lengths with a spade to stack them away.
Looking again at the pictures if that is a ditch the water runs away from then I would laid some large Gravel in the base for drainage, you could use any hardcore broken brick or what ever you have, it definitely needs raising a bit and take the opportunity to mix in plenty of grit and washed sand to the layer you use to raise the area this will give better drainage. The top layer will be compost or topsoil again mix in some washed sand. I never walk on my lawn in winter if it is a must I use a board to stand on, compaction is something you do not need.
Hope this helps, I can breathe again now you know the danger of ponds.
Frank.