Soil preparation for new turf (newbie)

Hi all
My search for information in regard to laying a new turf lawn has led me here, so hopefully I will get the information I need from all your combined experience. (Always good for the new boy to start with some light flattery I think... ;-)

I have searched briefly through the lawn forum already, but I have not found the topic I am after. So I have recently cleared and levelled my back garden, and was planning to lay new turf this weekend (hopefully). I plan to use Qlawn shade tolerant turf based on a recommendation of someone who has used them, and also because my garden is partly in shade.

The area was cleared down to the bare chalk, (Hampshire), and then several tonnes of recycled soil brought in over the past few weeks. I have been making finishing touches to some landscaping with a view to turfing this weekend, but the very heavy rain we had at the back end of last week and over the weekend highlighted several areas of the soil with pools of water on the top, and an area which would be more suitable to raising a couple of Tamworths (pigs) than laying turf! I been out 'spiking' the area with a 1" diameter rod, all the way down into the chalk, and filling with fine gravel hoping this will aid the drainage, but I'm not sure how effective this will be. The areas which suffered from the worst waterlogging were areas where I had to fill with the most soil, i.e. underlying chalk not not 100% level, so is it possible that although chalk is meant to be quite free-draining, as it was not level under the soil then water is flowing over the chalk to lowest areas?

I plan to dig the problem areas up over the next couple of days and add some gravel soakaways, but another suggestion was adding perlite to the soil which I hadn't heard of prior to last weekend.

If anyone has any suggestions as to what I may have to do to rectify this, they would be much appreciated. I am just very nervous about laying down about 80 sq m of new turf if my preparation of the area is inadequate.

Thanks in anticipation
Damo

 

Thanks for the response.
Well my house is on a slope, in the middle of a hill, so I guess there will be some runoff from elsewhere through my garden. But there is no standing water now, it has all dissipated, but after a couple of days of heavy rain there were several pools of standing water.
As to the recycled soil I brought in, I'm not sure of it's origin/type, but I bought it from a local recycler so I would assume it was local. At it's deepest, I have had to put about 8" of soil down, but in other parts only 3 or 4" of soil.
Another think which may be relevant is that I mixed some of the recycled soil with a soil improver, but I didn't cover the whole area. I think the areas which have been mixed with soil improver have drained well compared to the other areas. Could this be significant?

 

Looks like you are right John, having started to dig up the soil area I put down only a few weeks ago, it definitely feels claggy & sticky as you described, even tho it has been dry here since Monday, so I guess I have just put a clay dominant topsoil on top of chalk!! What a numptie!

So, laying of new turf now postponed while I try and resolve the issue. Any suggestions?

I guess I need to turn over the top few inches all over again, and then add something to try and improve it, but what? Organic soil conditioner, sharp sand, 10mm gravel, or all of the above? I'm clutching at straws here, I have a large area to try and fix (100 sq m), and still try and get turf down before winter sets in.

All advice much appreciated.