Advice Please

karlitob

Hi all

I’m currently planning my garden redesign - garden room, patio, and lawn.

The back of the garden rises about a 200-250mm from the front. So I’m planning to put a 200mm step ¾ way back - and at some stage I’ll have to level the both areas.

I’m about to excavate the front part of my garden to lay a patio. I think I’ll only need to take off the grass/vegetation layer. Not much soil - if that makes sense. Some but not lots.

Instead of clearing that into a skip at much effort and cost, can I put the sod on top onto the higher level.

It’s not even, and has lots of low spots. I’ve been very kindly advised on this forum to rotovate the entire thing anyway to help create a level. I won’t get to this until next year so was wondering if I could put the sod grass to grass and let it decompose, with the plan to rotovate and care for the lawn next year.


Thanks all. Sorry for long post.

looksee

Yes you can. I suggest - and someone may have better ideas - that you stack the sods in a tight enough heap and cover them with some old carpet or tarp or similar so that it rots down faster. In 12 months you may still have a bit of rubbish vegetation/roots to take out but you should also have some useful soil.

hirondelle

looksee wrote: »

Yes you can. I suggest - and someone may have better ideas - that you stack the sods in a tight enough heap and cover them with some old carpet or tarp or similar so that it rots down faster. In 12 months you may still have a bit of rubbish vegetation/roots to take out but you should also have some useful soil.

I wouldn't use carpet as the grass will push through it and continue growing- it is a pain to separate it (I used old carpet around the veg patch and still regret it!) A sheet of black plastic will help to kill off the growth while the sods are in storage. I would stack them tight and upside down to aid this.

karlitob

Thanks so much to you both for your replies.

Just to say - if it makes any difference - I wasn’t planning on storing the sod in rolls and waiting for it to rot. I actually meant putting a flat piece of lifted sod upside down in the raised area - or at least on a low spot on the raised area.

So it won’t look great. But I’m not worried as the garden will be a bit of a building site for a while anyway.

Is that an ok thing to do - seeing as I’ll rotovate it next year.

Thanks so much for your time.

standardg60

karlitob wrote: »

Thanks so much to you both for your replies.

Just to say - if it makes any difference - I wasn’t planning on storing the sod in rolls and waiting for it to rot. I actually meant putting a flat piece of lifted sod upside down in the raised area - or at least on a low spot on the raised area.

So it won’t look great. But I’m not worried as the garden will be a bit of a building site for a while anyway.

Is that an ok thing to do - seeing as I’ll rotovate it next year.

Thanks so much for your time.

That's absolutely fine to do and rotted sod makes excellent topsoil.
You'll probably need to apply weedkiller at stages to kill off any growth, but by next spring it will rotovate easily.

karlitob

standardg60 wrote: »

That's absolutely fine to do and rotted sod makes excellent topsoil.
You'll probably need to apply weedkiller at stages to kill off any growth, but by next spring it will rotovate easily.

Thanks so much. Really appreciate everyone’s time.

Less work, less cost! How bad.