Level garden and create a lawn - advice please

Hi,

Newbie here, Cambridge CB4, wanting a lawn. Sketchup attached if useful. Lawn area to be about 7m x 7m after a 3.5m deck extends rearwards from house.

There's a fall from front to rear of ~ 200 mm that wants levelling / lifting. (gravelboards at the back need lifting about 150 mm and want at least 50 mm cover) Sketchup says 11.5-14 cubic metres depending on how I measure.

Existing soil is ~12" of "topsoil" (clay with some dark brown bits in), 12-18" of "subsoil (lighter clay that sets fairly hard in the summer sun), then sand/gravel. It's compacted to all heck and what "grass" there is is self seeded weeds that I'll glyphosphate into oblivion.

It gets cooked in the summer when the sun is high enough to rise above the flats to the south. It gets shade in the winter when it isn't. It doesn't rain so much/so often in Cambridge (500 mm) vs back home (West Wales, 1,000 mm)

No children but let's assume at some point I'll either flip the house to a young couple OR rent it out so the lawn wants to be relatively idiot proof. A rotary battery lawnmower job not a cylinder mower and stripes.

Happy to turf rather than seed (impatient enough to buy turf rather than seed).

Would like to grow some plants against the fence in due course. Likely a vine above the deck and some fruit trees around the fence panels if this makes any odds whatsoever.

Easy access is 110 cm width down side alley except for the gas meter. Without the cover it can be ~95 cm. Access 175 cm width possible by removing exceedingly heavy fence panel and gravel board and crossing other land that's currently full of rubbish.

Probably a job for a landscaper even if I have always wanted to play with a mini digger but advice on what to ask for welcome!

Grab truck of topsoil onto the "driveway" and handball it down the side alley? Then what to prepare for turf? Which turf? Any pointers on idiots guides to laying lawns aimed at somebody more used to planting concrete posts than seeds? :-)

 

Looks like Kings Hedges area? I've previously been in Ditton Fields and Girton - now in St Neots.

First thing is your soil. Cambridge soil is all heavy clay, and I'll bet your place probably still has plenty of builders' rubble under it, like most new builds. At the very least it needs digging over or rotovating to break through the compacted layers, and extract any rubble while you're about it. Then an inch or so of half topsoil and half sand (agricultural, not builder's sand) over the top will give the turf or seed something to get established in. Each year, spike it over with a fork and spread half-and-half thinly over it to level it out (called top dressing).

When you make beds for plants, dig in as much compost and well-rotted manure as you can. That'll help keep the clay broken up, and attract worms which keep that going. You don't want to mix that into the soil under the lawn though, because the compost breaking down will cause the lawn surface to dip as the compost goes from underneath it. But for beds, you need to get plenty of bulk vegetable matter back into the soil to improve the clay.

Dealing with the change in height is best handled by scraping off the topsoil, levelling the subsoil as needed, then replacing the topsoil. The bonus of this is that you get your topsoil dug over as part of it, and it's an obvious time to mix in compost for beds too. When you're putting it back, make the surface of the soon-to-be lawn about 3" higher than the beds, because the lawn will drop slightly as the soil compacts, whereas the beds will stay that high or (if you mulch) maybe get higher.

Mini diggers are a ton of fun to play with, but if you value your fences then you might be better hiring someone. They'll probably get it done more quickly too, which could work out cheaper overall than how long you'd need to rent a digger for. The smallest mini diggers will fit through domestic doorways, so you should be able to get it through a 95cm gap, but you do need to be clear with whoever you get in (or the hire shop) how wide it needs to be.

I much prefer seeding a lawn. Turf suppliers tend to grow whatever grows quickly, because that gets them more money, but then you've got grass which almost needs mowing every couple of hours. With seed (especially ordering online) you can get much better quality. It's also a lot cheaper. If you don't have kids or dogs to consider, I'd recommend that. Both of them can be equally moody to establish if you don't have the soil prepared and keep it watered, so the work is basically the same for both.

 

A digger with driver would do that in less than 30 mins.