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Garden with Heavy Clay Soil and poor Drainage

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  • 20-03-2015 10:17am
    #1
    quazzy
    Registered Users Posts: 1,307 ✭✭✭


    Hi all,

    I know there is plenty of threads about gardens with heavy clay soil / poor drainage.

    I have read many of them and other forums on the topic.

    From what I can tell, the consensus is to add organic matter and mix well with the current clay soil. The idea behind is that mixing clay soil with other organic matter will slowly but surely change the mix of your soil and allow for better aeration and drainage.

    Here's my question though.

    Is there a brute force way to achieve this?

    I moved into my new house a little over a year ago and though we had a great summer in 2014 (for Ireland) parts of the garden were still quite wet underfoot despite weeks of sunshine and no rain.

    Would it be possible to get a mini digger and dig out lots of the soil and replace with new soil, mature, topsoil and grass.

    I realise that this sounds rather extreme (and most likely a rather big expense) but I don't want to spend years "digging in" organic material in order to make the garden more usable.

    Thanks
    Tagged:


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    #2
    homer911
    Registered Users Posts: 5,119 ✭✭✭homer911


    If your garden was still wet in the summer last year, you may have a spring causing problems - I'm consider a number of french drains/rubble drains to divert water away from your garden


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    #3
    quazzy
    Registered Users Posts: 1,307 ✭✭✭quazzy


    homer911 wrote: »
    If your garden was still wet in the summer last year, you may have a spring causing problems - I'm consider a number of french drains/rubble drains to divert water away from your garden

    Thanks for the reply.

    Is there anything that I can do confirm this is the case or would I need someone professional to check this?


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    #4
    homer911
    Registered Users Posts: 5,119 ✭✭✭homer911


    quazzy wrote: »
    Thanks for the reply.

    Is there anything that I can do confirm this is the case or would I need someone professional to check this?

    ? Dig a hole? Its also possible that you have a mains water pipe that has burst

    Identify the wettest part of the garden and did down carefully - no more than 3 feet. If it gets even wetter, or fills with water overnight, you have more than just a damp garden..


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