Grow Your Own Magazine

First post, woohoo!!!

My wife (JaneKT, who also recently joined) and I are currently half way through completely re-designing our back garden. As with most houses built in the last 5 years or so it was neither a pleasure to be in or an easy thing to maintain. So something had to be done!

If you imagine that from the back of the house we have about 10 feet of patio and then a 3 foot log "wall" up to our raised "garden". The patio was originally grass, but to be honest with the lack of sun it simply turned into a swamp. So it was slabbed!!!

The garden then continues to slope upwards to the back fence about 30 feet thereafter. The first 10 feet of the raised garden only receives full sunshine from mid day to late afternoon, so for a lot of the year it can be quite boggy. Conversely in the hight of summer it's in full sun for a lot of the time and therefore dries out quite easily.

Ok, enough of the jibbering... as you can see from the attached pictures we've completely stripped out the mutant, 6 inch growth over night, grass that was there previously and have started to re-design the garden (I'll leave Jane to post the pics of what we've done so far as I know she's really chuffed with it). The soil itself is quite high in clay content and is easily compacted. Now, I have about 1/2 a ton of nice loamy top soil which I intent to rotavate into the current soil, but is there anything else I should consider adding to improve it? Compost, sharp sand etc?

Also any tips on what kind of grass seed to use given the characteristics of the ground?

TIA

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Nathan

Hello NathanJT - and mrs JT welcome to the vine! Looks like you have already been doing lots of hard work. I think it's brill to take photos - you can show them off and you can also see the "befores" and "afters". Not sure how to answer your question re your lawn, but just wanted to say hello.
Looking forward to reading how you get on. Bernie aka Dexterdog

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Appreciate the little things in life because one day you will realise they are the big things

Hi Nathan,

If I were you I wouldn't rotavate all that lovely top soil into the other crap er I mean Clay. I would get hold of some sharp sand or better still Horticultural grit and rotavate that into the clay and then spread the goodstuff on top in raised beds.

The grit will help improve drainage in the subsoil (which is basically what you were left with after the builders took the good stuff off) and the topsoil will be better to grow in anyway.

You could incorporate some muck into the beds as well (but not if you want to grow carrots etc in them) as this will help to increase the depth of fetile soil then give it a good mulch every winter.

Failing that, slab the lot have tubs and pots & get yourself a lottie

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ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

Hello NathaJT & Mrs, I too am new here - t'is a good place.

We recently (last year) did much the same as you in terms of redoing the garden. We too have a North facing rear garden, much of which doesn't get light at any other time of the year barring the summer months. We opted for railway sleeper decking at the top end of the garden and levelled the lawn slightly below, and then the patio at the back of the house is another two feet below that.

I've attached a couple of before-during-after photos (hopefully resized correctly this time?).

We cheated in the end and used turf for almost immediate use. Looks a little less "bowling green" now though I'm afraid (drainage problem saw almost hal the lawn dug up to investigate soakway!).

Like you, I am keen to keep the lawn in tip top condition, so I think I'll be adopting the regular application of sharp sand to permiate through and help drainage. On the up-side, there seem to be plenty of worms in my lawn - I know because of the amount of worm casts that appear.

Good luck.

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Hi and welcome,

If you want a reasonable lawn from seed you need to think about a few things. Do you have/are you intending kids. How often are you prepared to mow. Will the lawn area see heavy foot traffic (consider a bark or slab path on you usual route through the garden). How wet/dry is it.

There are as many different seed mixes as there are blades of grass in the average lawn! Given the info you have typed up I would suggest a 'shade mix' or a 'tough mix' the first is as it says, for areas that are generally shady, but it might suffer in the summer and/or grow too fast for your prefered cutting interval. The second is a mix that is mainly short fescues, very hard wearing, tenacious, and good for areas that see a lot of foot traffic such as children playing.

Hope this helps

Terry

You mean people actually sow grass seed? Deliberately?

Sorry, flippancy got the better of me there. I have spent most of my life digging up lawns to make veg beds or flower borders and people buying our houses have had to re-lay lawns if they wanted grass. I know that people say vegetable are hard work but I don't push a mower around for hours on end. Good job we don't all like the same thing - some of us would be killed in the rush!

Welcome to the vine - I've not been here long but you soon feel very much at home.

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 17th - The Big Dig

Turf type perennial ryegrass (Lolium Perenne) is the hardest wearing. Fescues (Festucia) and Bents (Agrostis) are used mainly on fine turf i.e Golf greens
A shade mix with added Ryegrass is a good compromise!

I agree with Nick about use of the topsoil. Depending on how wet the area is you may even need to consider a piped drainage system.

Possibly a mixture of Decking, coloured Gravel and Paving would be worth considering and would need very little maintenance!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Thanks for all the replies.

We've put down turf this weekend! We were too impatient and wanted an instant lawn. A friend recommended Rolawn turf to us and so we've given it a go. We're pleased with the result so far at least the lumps and bumps are gone

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Jane