I had my house built 2 years ago on a 940 sq/m block. All of the land is grass that was left to grow through the soil after the building work.
The problem I have is that the soil is rock solid..the area is known for having high clay content.
Now when I say hard, I mean HARD. In the patches where grass is bare, I attempted to use a garden fork to put aerate the soil/lawn. I couldn't even get the fork into the ground, not even one inch in, with all my weight on it, even soaked soil is impossible to penetrate.
This is obviously why the grass is very patchy in areas.
Drainage is also terrible..water does NOT soak into the ground at all...I've laid some trenches with gravel, leading into the water tank overflow pipe that leads out onto the road kerb...this has helped a little.
When the soil is dug up (after a lot of back breaking work)...the soil is almost pure clay...even if its soaked and dug up, it's like really thick modelling clay..not at all like soil.
Now my question is, is there anything I can do to the soil to help break is down somewhat, to help the lawn grow easier?
Gypsum keeps popping up in my searches, but can this be spread over a lawn, and will it do anything if it cant be dug in?
Any help would be very much appreciated, as I have no idea what else I can do...
I had the same problem exactly. I actually left it for 2 years and not 1 weed grew in it, it was that hard and dry.
Here is what you need to do.
Firstly, go and hire a rotary Hoe. not a small crappy one, get the big diesel powered one.
Go and buy a few bags of mushroom compost (the more the merrier). Some aged chicken manure (maybe 1 bag) some blood and bone a few bags of gypsum and a few bags of sand.
Spread the lot out over the area of your dry clay. doesnt have to be neat.
Get the rotary hoe, fire it up and start walking up and down and around the area until its all chopped up and got some air in it.
Dont be afraid to put all ur body weight on the rotary hoe and really get it burried to loosen everything up.
the hoe will mix all the stuff you threw down, and what you've done is the following.
1. Mushroom compost - add organic matter to the clay soil to feed it nutrients and allow it to decompose and improve your soil
2. Gypsum (takes ages to work ) break up the clay
3. Sand to lighten the clay up and allow better drainiage between particles
4. Blood and bone - some food
5. Chicken manure (dont put too much just sprinke some around) will give it some food
Finally, get some seeds, go absolutley nuts with the grass seeds, and lightly rake it all nice and flat. Dont worry bout compacting it all down, let the rain do that for you but the raking will get the seeds belwo the ground slightly to germinate and grow well.
I did this in my front and back yards and the results are amazing, i have green lucious grass and the clay soil is now going a nice black and worms are imroving there. once u get worms in, they will do the work for you.
Cheers
Generally seeded turfs use very large volumes of water in summer to stay green.
Look at Kikuyu like emerald, that an be bought as a seed
much better but aggressive. good in heavier soil.s and soft to the touch
I am a bit iffy on the chook poo thing. You don't want new turf growing like crazy from the nitrogen when it has very little roots to support it. Mushroom composts tend to have chook poo in them, well the ones around here do. That will contain enough. Otherwise you make a formula one car with enough fuel to only get down the straight..
Olsens green bio, put the microecology back on the map
this is also just as good
http://bioasis.com.au/index.php?option= ... icle&id=67If you have clay then use sand as well. Avoid layering the soil, work hard to mix it in so there aren't definable layers of soil. This makes for deeper roots and better soil moisture.
Gypsum will not begin to take effect in the soil for many years. 10 ltrs Powerfeed it is said will do the job of a tonne of gypsum. Such is the effective super powers of liquid composts rich in humates and aminoacids along with other goodies
No harm in adding the gypsum but don't expect it start doing it's stuff very quick