[plum crumble]

We have a relatively small back garden. The house is 13 years old, and the builders clearly laid the current lawn on a very small depth of topsoil over an impregnable layer of something. We think that we are sited on the old yard of a derelict farm - our very fit builder son could not get through the layer even with a pick-axe - after trying extremely hard and literally causing sparks to fly.

The lawn is also sloping from back to front (draining onto the patio area, for which we have a drain)

In dry weather the lawn looks terrible very quickly

SO, is it worth our while trying to increase the depth of the top-soil and laying new turves? Or are we wasting our time given the impregnable layer below? (All our borders are raised beds as a consequence of the conditions!). I would be grateful for your thoughts on this, and also on any particular types of grass to get. The garden is usually just me and OH, with occasional summer BBQ's, so doesn't need to be football pitch standard! THANKS!

[JayG]

My lawn is a poor affair; despite the soil being of good depth it is very sandy and the grass suffers quickly not only from drought but lack of food (if I feed it it grows, as soon as I stop feeding it it stops growing; quite handy if you don't like mowing very much!)

Next door's lawn was re-turfed by the previous owners about 5 years ago and still grows like the clappers; my neighbour hates gardening and the luxuriance of his lawn compared to mine is a standing joke between us!

The only explanation I can think of is that the turves must have been grown in some much richer soil than what it's been laid on and the grass is still benefitting from that; that could be a way forward for you Plum.

[snowdrops]

Go for it. We did last year. We moved 5 years ago & since then I tried to improve the lawn we inherited but it didn't get better.Last year we were majorly re designing the garden & Mr S suggested we took the lawn up and leveled it.It really added loads of work on top of what we were doing.We started the 1st hot weekend of the year(can you remember we did have one).We hired a turf stripper, it didn't work too well but we later found out it works better on well watered turf. We sowed seed & now have a wonderful lawn & we've gained so much usable sitting area because we haven't got the slopes we had before. I'll try & post some pics but I don't know how to do that yet.

[iggyboy60]

Hi Plum Crumble,the fact that you have had nothing but trouble with the lawn,the soil being shallow and more importantly the occasional BBQ,this is a no brainer. Flag or pave the area! This gives you the option of having more plants to decorate your garden area further via large pots and your BBQ area will be all the better for it