Plan for wet lawn

1jim

Hi
Our back garden is build on clay soil and is quite wet and boggy, most of the grass is now moss:o, A year ago I dug around 2 of the edges to a depth of 50-75cm, filled mostly with pea gravel and then topped up with slate to make a path and this has worked well for this area but the rest of the grass remains very wet.
My plan is to to dig a few trenches down the garden to depth of approx 1m, put a garden membrane on base of trench, put in gravel, then another membrane, then some topsoil and then turf, could anyone advise what depth of topsoil would be best before putting turf on it?
The other thing I might do is to dig out the entire garden to depth of 1m or so and then fill as above, any thoughts on this?
thanks
Jim

allan673

im in a similar situation, need advice too. digging entire garden to 1m deep sounds like hard work.

1jim

Thats what I thought but did think about hiring a mini digger, was worried that if I dug 3-4 trenches then the other bots may cave in?

se999

We had a very small garden like that, with clay it baked solid in the summer so the grass died, and in winter was a muddy mess.

I gave up and redesigned the garden with a gravel area instead of a lawn, could use it all year round and no mess of mud in the house. Admittedly up until that house I'd always preferred lawns, but in the circumstances it just didn't work.

If the grass is now moss, it sounds like you might have a shade problem too, so maybe look for grass seeds mixes for shady areas too.

1jim

good point, we are quite shaded for most of the day, really need grass for the children or would quite happily get rid of the lot :-)

doshunta

OK, I dropped my garden a meter last year...acorss 12 by 8m remember soil volume multiplies by 3-4 times when you dig out... it's hard work and expensive.
150+ tons later and 13 lorry loads later it was done. But leaving a bare clay bed which then ran heavy rain right onto the patio..arrrggh!
I dug a trench 50com deep, with slight slope into a pit which I filled with bricks and hardcore, the covered with soil (soakaway).
Then I put a few inches of hardcore across the lot as an absorbtion layer, with thin sand layer to fill any cracks in hardcore layer..
On top of this in different zones I then laid topsoil and turf/decorative gravel.
This build in further absorbtion but slightly raised garden again, so I pur a sleeper edging in front of patio.
Several tactics in one, but it worked!
Good luck!