i'm just going to show you a few things
what you might be able to do
to improve your clay lawn in your new
build property
hi guys so in this video this little
short video we're just talking about
new build properties and the problem
with them and the way that the lawns are
laid on many
new build properties the fact that
they're laid on
clay on many new build properties not
all
but it is quite a common theme
and and while your lawn looks pretty
for a while once it's gone through its
first winter or it's gone through a lot
of rain
you start to see problems with it just
showing you this particular lawn now and
i'm just going to show you through it
first and i want you to
think and look at it and wonder why it
looks like how it looks
so let's have a little look so first of
all
new build property and
it's not looking very happy at all so
let's go and show you the back
now i've been coming here for a year now
and we did a renovation on this lawn
last year and it looked
stunning for about six to eight months
until it got to autumn
so let's just have a look at this now as
you can see here
all the moss and how brown it looks
when you look over there
see how it's looking all thin around
this edge
and then we'll show you over here
and here
absolutely a full of moss
and very little grass so
why is that well first of all
like most new belts this is very very
heavy thick horrible clay it's
absolutely awful
there's at least eight inches of clay
here so i'm just going to show you this
i've dug a square out here but you can
just see a piece of it there
it's like morph off of take heart it's
just
totally sticky clay and that goes down
at least eight inches
so we've had so much rain from october
last year
so we're going back to six seven eight
months of pretty much
rain rain rain constant now when it
rains
it's coming down it's sitting on top of
that clay and it's got nowhere to drain
to
so this is a drainage issue
and grass struggles in shaded areas
and moss thrives in shaded areas and
what's happened is
the moss has won and with all the rain
as well
which is crowded out and basically
drowned the grass
because it needs air rain and nutrients
it's had too much rain
and new prints and air have not been
able to get in and get down to where the
roots are
now when i pulled a square out the roots
are actually really good
they're at least seven inches long on
the turf
the other thing is the customers
actually cut it a bit too short well not
a bit a lot
too short as you can see everything
drains down to here
and it's just uh and been cut really
short and it's in there
in the shade so it's uh it's got very
little chance of
doing well around here unless the
customer raises the height of cut which
i've
just explained to them and we do
something about the clay
so that is the other issue so i'm just
going to get back to the van
and we'll talk to you about the clay in
the lawn
what can we do what can we do about clay
in lawrence
especially on new builds
option one is to dig it all out
and replace a nice topsail option two
is to have some drainage put in and
installed
expensive
option three is to run the aerator over
them over the lawn but that only aerates
the top
inch inch and a half something like that
doesn't deal with the deep
down clay the deep down issues which
lead to the problems where you're
getting puddles
and buggy and everything else
so something i've seen in america which
i'm starting to recommend to customers
now it's something
you've got to do yourself until someone
invents a machine
which will drill a hole down into the
ground
through the clay so we need at least a
foot foot and a half something like that
and you need to be aware of um pipes
and electrical um wires and tubes and
pipes and things like that that come
into the property
from outside or drainages which are
already built in
under the ground you need to be aware of
those because the last thing you want to
be doing
is drilling down and cracking one of
those
so basically
you're like a drill bit which is maybe
two foot long with an auger
type attachment on it so it's one of
those that spins round and round and
round
it's what they use for drilling fence
hall posts
you can buy august you can hire august
for 200 pounds to buy them
you can hire them for probably 40 50
pounds but you need
an auger bit this may be only an inch
wide so what you do is you drill down a
foot
two foot and remove the clay from that
hole
you only want about an inch wide then in
that hole
you insert organic material
potato peelings compost topsoil
get all that in there and you are
replacing the clay
with soil and you are then allowing for
better
drainage but you've got to do it all
over your lawn
and i would go with about every three
inches on the staggered bases so there
there there there like a triangle one
two three
one two three that's how you've gotta do
it
because if not you're potentially gonna
end up with um a nice little circle
where it's lush green and then right
next to it an area where it's struggling
and it's gonna look very odd and very
spotty over your lawn
now this is new to me and this is just
advice based on what i've read and what
i have seen
happening in america but working well
so just pass this little tip on to you
for heavy clay lawns um
see how you get on let me know let me
know in the comments
you're going to be pulling a lot of
material out so you've got to think
about that when you're drilling your
holes maybe just do a few
one week and a few another week and then
you've got to get rid of the waste
all right guys see on the next one
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