Buying top soil

dllive

Hi all,
I have a dust bowl measuring about 60 square metres. I have no top soil. Just stones and sub soil. I want to turf it all. 
Where best to get top soil from and to what depth?
Thanks

[Deleted User]

Doing your own searches is the best idea really as only you know your expectations and budget. 
However, the company I used last summer was The Stone & Garden Company, I bought 14 tons of Premier Bed and Borders and the quality was excellent and the service from the company equally so.
Link here: https://www.stoneandgarden.co/garden/topsoil.html 

Davesnave

Buying locally will be cheapest. For example, a bag of concreting ballast from the company recommended above is £30 dearer than from my local builder's yard. This is because transport forms the bulk of the cost for heavy materials. The cheapest way to buy is by the lorry load rather than in dumpy bags, but not everyone can take a lorryload delivery of, say, 15 tonnes in one go.

Having found a local supplier, its important to visit them and see the quality for yourself before ordering. Once the soil arrives and is plonked in your garden, it's too late to say, "Oi, I don't like this stuff!"

I'd be looking to achieve 0.15m thickness for a lawn over sub soil, but others may have other ideas, like laying sand first. I'm no expert with lawns, as one look at my own will attest!

twopenny

I got quotes recently. Builders merchant cheap and delivered but unlikely to be quality or sterilised which may mean weeds you don't want in your bowling ball perfect lawn. If it's for kids to play football I'd go for it.

The plant nursery more expensive (not hugely) but quality and sterilised. Excellent for flower/veg beds. If you want a perfect lawn shell out for this.

Ring each for quotes and ask if it's sterilised

As Dave said, once you've got it it's going to be a heck of a job to change you mind!

dllive

Thanks guys.
I spoke to one company who screen the soil to 150mm and they quoted £350. Another company that screens it to 100mm quoted £1k!
The ground is in very poor condition. Theres no top soil. Its basically stones/rubble/12 inches of clay; and then under that is more rubble and subsoil.
I dont want Wimbledon. I just want standard grass. Im not looking for perfection. I was thinking Id need about 4 inches of top soil? 

Grenage

If you aren't that fussed on quality then you can get away with paying less.

As for depth, the easiest thing to do is go online and look at the root depth for grass.  A cursory glance says 150-250mm (I'm sceptical about 250), so 150 (6") is probably as shallow as you'd want to go.

twopenny

I can't visualise 60sq mtrs but I think it's fairly big and £350 sounds very reasonable if they are going to bring the soil and put it down.

£1000 is a joke.

I'd be inclined to get a 3rd quote if you can. And are they going to tamp it down so it's ready to lay the grass on or seed?

I remember a long time ago there was some stuff you put down to help break up the clay. Might be worth looking up to give you some extra for the roots to go down to in our hot dry summers. You want to get this right first time and not shell out money for it all to go brown.

I'd agree a minium of 6". I've been digging up turf and it comes up at about 4-5" with more soil under and at the moment there's barely  moisture 5" down.