Importance of stones

Windlepoons

Hi All,

I recently started leveling my garden as it sloped down towards the house. Once I got to the required level I sieved down about 8 to 10 inches removing all stones greater than than 10mm in size.

Unfortunatly as I moved aross the garden I started to hit heavy clay soil that was crumbly in some places and sticky on others, this was only a few cm below the surface.

As a result I am now going to raise the garden up by 8 inches using sleepers, this will hopefully also help reduce the drainage problems I am seeing (probally a result of being so close to the clay sub surface at one end of the garden).

Should I put all the stones I removed back into the sieved dirt? I have been told they will help with drainage as well as help give the soil some stability.

If I dont put them back I will have about 20" of dirt that has no stones greater than 10mm in size with heavy clay soil below that, would this cause a problem?

Thanks in advance.

forgotmyname

I am puzzled by the stones and drainage issues also.

I can understand a pile of them allowing water to drain through them, But just a few stones scattered here and there???

If its clay you may want to dig that down a bit and add something to improve the soil and let nature do some work.

Get a l.oad of manure in there or similar?

Ectophile

I can't imagine that individual stones will do anything to help drainage. However, if you've now got a pile of spare stones, then they could be useful to act as drainage at any point where you want water to drain away.

Windlepoons

you could say I have a few stones, for every wheel barrow of sieved soil I ended up with 1 bucket of stones :-/

Leif

I am sure they do help drainage. I removed large stones from my soil but only because I was digging veg beds. In your case you probably want to put them back, and add some sharp sand to help drainage. Wickes sell bulk bags at a good price. I believe sharp sand is suitable and you don't need horticultural sand, which costs more.