What are best steps to make this area usable?

Hi all,

I have an area to the left of a path i'd like to have as a bedding for a whole manner of shrubs, flowers and plants.

However, there is no top soil, and the earth is quite full of clay, and contains lots of stones etc. Please take a look at the photo to see what I mean.

Do I need to remove the stoney mud and replace with soil from a garden center? Or is there an easier option?

I've read around, and organic matter has been suggested, but I was wondering if there's anything else I can do, or will a few inches of top soil be sufficient?


Many thanks,

Adam

 

It look awful, but bearing in mind the weather recently it looks like that all round my garden.

Is it total sub soil?
Or is it just clayey top soil.

If its top soil you could work with it by adding organic matter.

If there has been some building work going on and its sub soil I think I would remove as much as I can and get some top soil brought in.

 

create individual planting holes, put down membrane and cover with gravel

 

It all depends what you want to do....for the least work do as sugggested by hbc above and choose tough plants that cope well with poor soils. Or for a more fertile border that will support a bigger range of plants, dig out and remove as much as you can then dig over whats left adding new topsoil and organic matter (try and find bulk supply from builders merchant garden centre will be too expensive).

 

Thank you all, best step is to remove as much as possible then.

 

It looks to me as if you have some weed growth suggesting that the soil holds some structure and fertillity, i wouldn't dig it out but would dig it over to a spades depth leave it for a few weeks for the frosts to breakdown then incorparate some sharp sand and organic matter seaweed or leafmould if you can get it but would be best. For the first year i would get some sweetpeas against the fence and look for some annuals that can handle sticky clay soils for the rest of the bed. Growing these plants for the first year will help to condition the soil and come the end of the year when you take them out and replace with spring bedding you will get the opertunity to incorporate more organic matter.

 

Hello,

Only my second post on here so here goes with the advice. First I am really a novice gardener and I am only posting about what I found worked for me so take my advice with a pinch of salt. :lollol:

I wanted to create a shallow bed at the front of my house. It has to be shallow so that it didn't breach the damp proof course. Underneath the bed is concrete. I smacked the concrete a bit with a sledgehammer so that water would drain, but I though sod it I'm not taking that lot up.

So what I have is a very shallow bed. I grow very small rooted plants from seed every year and it is a blaze of colour. I can't put any shrubs in there, but I grow things I can cut and put into vases in the house.

Being tight I decided not to buy any top soil and so I just emptied the contents of one of my (large) compost bins into the bed and used this. The bed is one brick high (bricks laid on their side that is).

Here is a link to a piccy (sorry the bed is not looking great in this picture. It was taken very early spring and as you can see all my tubs are empty). The flags are in the bed so we can stand on them to wash the windows (not that we do!) without squashing plants once they have grown.

it is a clicky pic.




Could you do something similar and create a low shallow raised bed?