garden drainage

[paulwheeler]

I have a small garden (approx 37sq mtrs) which is completely laid to lawn. The house is about six years old and the garden is solid clay no top soil to speak of. In the summer the lawn cracks open to reveal quite deep fissures that you can sink your hand in and in the winter it floods. It is a north facing garden with 2mtre high fencing so particularly down one side there is little direct sunlight. The lawn itself is uneven and not of any good quality. Realising we have a drainage problem we have already installed a land drain running diagonally across the garden with two feeder drains, one either side. Drainage is then to a soakaway in the lowest and wettest corner. However this is of limited success as there is still dense clay in the garden making drainage to the drain difficult. I believe I now need to get some sand and compost into the soil. I would like to do this by using a small tiller. My question basically is can I just dig in the lawn (which is not worth keeping for reasons stated above) or must I remove the turf first? Or do you have any other suggestions? Afterwards I will level and lay a new lawn but long term intend to install a patio in one corner.

[lslowry]

try a rotavator, paul. then put some sharp sand and garden compost,removing all stones and debris. then rotavate it again removing all rubbish. this will give you a good base

[carlton23]

Before motivating remove any deep rooted weeds or they will be cut up into many pieces and each piece will grow into another weed. You must remove every bit. Hard work, but if you want a decent lawn you have to put in the labour, then follow `Islowry`s` advise.

[rowanwitch]

sounds like you may need to lay pipe /tile drains or have a japanese water garden

[theonlyone]

I would take off the grass , dig it a spit deep ,then rotovate it
but then dig in loads of organic matter , mushroom compost is
brilliant stuff to break down clay , but a job to be done when the ground
is not rock hard ....good luck as we have had the same ploblem and now
have a lovely lawn .

[Old_Geezer]

Have you ever thought of ready-mix ?