Any landscaping experts ?

[atomant48]

up to almost the final part of the big deck build trying to level the ground along one of the edges. I’m building up with topsoil as in the pic (having first stripped back the turf and roughed up the soil underneath.) new turf will then go on.

I’m goong to make sure there’s 150mm of top soil everywhere but few questions :

- how much do I need to compact the topsoil before turf goes on ? It’s probably 3-400mm deep at the deepest part.

- what do I do to the topsoil before laying the turf - just rough it up a bit or water it etc ?

Using hand tools only so hopefully will get a reasonable result. I’m trying to minimise disturbing the lawn as it’s in really good shape.

There is a bit of welding - I made some pretty clever posts to hold those sleepers in place. :-)

 

[Ashley Burton]

Your topsoil sounds a little deep to me!

Hardcore & a few inches of topsoil is my thoughts

Is that a retaining wall on the left? If so what is built from, As it's hard to tell by the pictures

 

[Fraserb]

View attachment 222317 View attachment 222318 up to almost the final part of the big deck build trying to level the ground along one of the edges. I’m building up with topsoil as in the pic (having first stripped back the turf and roughed up the soil underneath.) new turf will then go on.

I’m goong to make sure there’s 150mm of top soil everywhere but few questions :

- how much do I need to compact the topsoil before turf goes on ? It’s probably 3-400mm deep at the deepest part.

- what do I do to the topsoil before laying the turf - just rough it up a bit or water it etc ?

Using hand tools only so hopefully will get a reasonable result. I’m trying to minimise disturbing the lawn as it’s in really good shape.

There is a bit of welding - I made some pretty clever posts to hold those sleepers in place. :-)

Topsoil needs to be pretty solid, we did a job with similar fill and it was bucketed in with forklifts and levelled and sown with a tractor and it still settled a bit over time.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

We used to 'walk in' the base before turfing. It involved walking across the area using your heels to compact the soil, walk, turn, walk, turn etc. Then do it at 90 degrees...same method. This is very hard on the legs and it helps if you can find volunteers to do it

Then lightly rake level, lightly apply some fertiliser and lay turf.

EDIT: As said above, that's a lot of topsoil which'll nedd 'firming' a fair bit before final preparation.

 

[Shedendman]

Chuck in some old plastic pipes to help with drainage

 

[atomant48]

All good advice thanks.

It is a retaining wall - 8x2 sleepers against some RHS posts. It’s pretty solid.

Regards the depth of soil - agreed it’s pretty deep. We had the whole back yard raised nearly a metre 3 years back and (for reasons various) most of that is top soil. It has settled in places but is not too bad and does drain ok. So im not too worried about this part being 300 or so deep. I’ll pack it down and prepare the top as noted above. Thanks all.

 

[atomant48]

Spent the day loading more in and compacting down. Starting to take shape will now leave it for a few days walking on it a lot and then reshape before turf down later next week.

 

[brightspark]

just needs heavy rolling before turf goes down

 

[atomant48]

Well gave the new turf it’s first haircut today. Seems to have blended in well and is nice and solid. Kids loving it which was the main aim!

 

[brightspark]

looks nice and healthy similar to daughters she had to grass where the slabs were taken up and the grass is a different variety and darker not that it matters

 

[atomant48]

looks nice and healthy similar to daughters she had to grass where the slabs were taken up and the grass is a different variety and darker not that it matters

yeah it’s a bit darker at the moment but I just took the top off it whereas the rest is cut short (so looks a bit browner coming through). It should match up well when all cut down a bit. I need to keep it short as apparently the remote control cars go better !