Hi,

just having a conservatory installed and in the process the lawn by the
house is being trampled on, cut up, and a large soakaway dug right in
the middle of it (area affected is dead flat 10*20yrds or so, surrounded
by paths/patios so no room for altering levels)

Looking at the soakaway it transpires the lawn (which always felt rather
firm(!)) comprises a layer of grass and topsoil about 2-3inches deep,
with what seems like at least 3 feet of dense flinty rubble below...
(not rubble but probably a chalky mix with about 70% stone)

When the conservatory is finished I would like to see the grass lawn at
least flat and alive even if not luxuriant!

I'm not in a position (busy life) to spend hours and hours for the next
25yrs tending it but any suggestions as to how to get the best out of it

Thanks

On Thu, 01 Sep 2005 20:59:50 GMT, Tim Walter
wrote:

Hi,

just having a conservatory installed and in the process the lawn by the
house is being trampled on, cut up, and a large soakaway dug right in
the middle of it (area affected is dead flat 10*20yrds or so, surrounded
by paths/patios so no room for altering levels)

Looking at the soakaway it transpires the lawn (which always felt rather
firm(!)) comprises a layer of grass and topsoil about 2-3inches deep,
with what seems like at least 3 feet of dense flinty rubble below...
(not rubble but probably a chalky mix with about 70% stone)

When the conservatory is finished I would like to see the grass lawn at
least flat and alive even if not luxuriant!

I'm not in a position (busy life) to spend hours and hours for the next
25yrs tending it but any suggestions as to how to get the best out of it

Thanks

I have a couple of these in the garden, but smaller, and one large
empty box of a soakaway one under the lawn, approximately a 4ft cube.
The small ones are covered with polythene sheet/bags, to stop soil
from percolating down into the gaps between the rubble. The big one
has a concrete roof, but, like yours, only a limited thickness of soil
above it. Most of the time it's fine, but in dry summers it's easy to
see where it is as it goes brown long before the rest of the grass.

I'd put some polythene sheet down under the grass to stop the soil
from slowly disappearing, and I'd keep it watered in dry weather.


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

Chris Hogg wrote:
[...]
I'd put some polythene sheet down under the grass to stop the soil
from slowly disappearing, and I'd keep it watered in dry weather.

I'm intrigued. We get this suggestion of putting a plastic film under
a lawn quite often in urg, and it always strikes me as a bad idea:
too dry in dry weather, puddle in the wet. No different from laying a
lawn on a concrete slab. I don't see that there's any danger of the
OP's soil disappearing underground if it's on the firm base he
describes. Has anybody actually done it, and observed performance
over a few seasons?

--
Mike.