My garden has heavy clay soil which gets waterlogged. Is there a solution?

Question

short of excavating the whole nasty lot and replacing with decent earth, which isn't really a starter as it would be very expensive and impractical for someone living in a terrace with no back access to take the stuff away

Answer 1

How much you do depends how often it gets waterlogged and what you want to do with it.

Digging will help.  Double dig it in spring and autumn, adding plenty of organic matter and grit (you can buy both by the sack at the garden centre).  That generally cures most clay soil problems.

If drainage is a big problem, dig a drain at the lowest point of the garden (if it's flat, at the far end from the house).  Dig a hole about 5 ft deep and fill it with pieces of broken concrete.  If that's still not enough you can run a network of drainage pipes across the garden draining into it. (That's normally only necessary for football pitches)

Answer 2

Keep it aerated, regularly fork and foe the borders, and remember grass and plants absorb water.

Answer 3

mix together mulch  peat moss  and your soil it will airation in youe  garden. And make good soil.

Answer 4

Garden lime is supposed to break up clay soil. I gave up trying and had flag stones laid.

Answer 5

You need to dig in sand and compost. It takes a few years to get enough in to make a diffreence but it does work.  Another good option is using the tree bark mulch as that breaks down to add fibrous matter to the soil.

Answer 6

Give it to me, I loves that stuff! I think you need some absorbing soil maybe? I can't think of a cheap solution I'm afraid :(

Answer 7

turn your whole yard over

Answer 8

Work in vermiculite, compost, old leaves or any other organics you can get.  Eventually you will have good soil.  If you mix in only sand you will have a close facimaly to concrete when it is dry.

Answer 9

Dig or rotovate in the Autumn when all summer crops are harvested,spread a thin coating of sharp sand over area, then cover with good farmyard manure,( you can get this in bags from some farmers) and leave it to next spring. Then dig it in, you will find this will help break the clay up, but you will need to do it every year,

I do this and my very clayey garden works quite well now,  

Answer 10

You could put a gravel trap in with drainage run off. Its not really legal but a friend who suffered from flooding buried a large amount of gravel in his garden and ran a 4" drain pipe from it into the manhole in his garden, that was 6 years ago and it still works fine (dry garden)

Answer 11

you will have to amend the soil  and add sand and lighter soils to it...if you do not want to do that then do a search for plants that thrive in clay like soils or utilize some of the area by landscaping with flagstone paths and birdbaths etc..

good luck

Answer 12

we are the same, the whole of skems soil is just like clay, we have been trying for years to get a decent garden, we even bought so many sacks of decent soil but it just sunk and before long it was just clay again.  if its just your garden then replacing it with decent earth might be ok im not sure, but if its the whole area then i think you would be wasting your money, we havnt found a solution yet sorry.

Answer 13

Rotted horse manure does wonders for heavy clay.  It won't solve the waterlogging though and if it's really bad you will have to do it as good as every year.  But it will break up the clumps, improve soil structure and make the clay more managable.  Also it is very cheap, I used to pay 50p for a black bag full of it.

Dig it in in at least one, preferbly 2 spades deep.  Frosts will also break up heavy clay, by leaving ridges more surface is exposed.

Sometimes gypsum helps

Answer 14

bogger

Answer 15

hi,first you need heavy duty engineers crow bar they are about five foot long ( sorry dont do metric) drive it in as deep as you can wiggling it to enlarge holes.fill with peashingle this may take some time add compost to the surface dont dig let the worms do the work,sharpe sand will be lost so you have to be patient.the more holes plus deep ones the better this method is less work than digging.plant willows these will dry out soil cut them back hard if getting to big. popa

Answer 16

When you add sand to it you'll get concrete unless you add a tremendous amount of sand,  just about any solution is going to take time and patience,  it does need compost, leaf compost should be at least 2 years old before you add it in, continual working of the soil helps to break it down, work the compost in twice a year if you can in the spring before planting and then in the fall before it goes dormant,  continuing to add compost around the base of the plants throughout the year helps and compost can be used as a mulch also to help keep down weeds,   use 3 to 4 inches of compost for weed control vs the 2 inches of mulch.  Hard bark mulch takes longer to break down adds to the acidity of the soil.

And you can add a drainage ditch.   Find the lowest point of the garden where the water will naturally flow, dig a trench  8 to 12 inches deep, put a layer of gravel about an inch to 2 inches deep on the bottom run perforated drain tile that has what is known as a sock over it along the trench.  add more gravel on top of this and then cover with soil

A good guide to follow is.... 2 inches of gravel on the bottom the 3 inch drain tile  2 inches of gravel and then 3 inches of soil ... that'll give you a trench at least 10 inches deep.

We always dug them to 12 inches when solving a drainage issue, and made sure there was proper fall so as to run the water in the direction we wanted it to go.

Answer 17

You need to mix in SHARP sand,and loads of it.It's a permanent solution.One ton over 10 sq metres.Anything less and it won't work.Heavy clay is the most nutrient full soil around,just needs the sharp sand for drainage