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Flattening Ground


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We're due to break ground on our plot in August (only 4 years late but never mind) and I'm starting to think a little about landscaping. 

 

The contractors will be scraping and grading where the house and driveway is going but the there is still a lot of area, about an acre, that is very lumpy and uneven. I think cows grazed on it decades ago. Currently it's a lightly wooded field with a couple of clearings. 

 

I'm not after a prefect lawn or anything, just something we can walk around without tripping. Any thoughts on the best way to achieve this? I don't want to scrape too much and spend a fortune turning it into the Somme.

 

Many thanks

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Can you get them to scrape just the very top 100mm off the drive and house footprint and pile this in the other area? Then they can do the rest of the reduced dig and muck it away. It is nice to have an apron around the house about 1.5m wide with hardcore for scaffold. Hopefully we will have a nice dry summer and you will be able to come to site in your white linen suit!

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Just now, Christine Walker said:

You might have soil from your dig out which could be used to level it off?

We will have but most of it will be going to build some berms alongside a stream. 

I'm currently thinking a chain harrow pulled by a garden tractor but I don't know if it will work.

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How big is the digger that will be doing the work.  Anything over 5t could spread any topsoil over and then track it in.  Don't put the  clay you dig out for the founds over it and try and rake that out. It will be too stiff.   

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Just now, Mr Punter said:

Can you get them to scrape just the very top 100mm off the drive and house footprint and pile this in the other area? Then they can do the rest of the reduced dig and muck it away. It is nice to have an apron around the house about 1.5m wide with hardcore for scaffold. Hopefully we will have a nice dry summer and you will be able to come to site in your white linen suit!

Dry summer would nice, white linen suit may set the wrong tone for the staff though.

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Just now, Declan52 said:

How big is the digger that will be doing the work.  Anything over 5t could spread any topsoil over and then track it in.  Don't put the  clay you dig out for the founds over it and try and rake that out. It will be too stiff.   

Not sure on the plant that will be working it, we have to be careful of the trees. Good point on the clay as there is a lot of it.

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We just dug all the topsoil and put that in a pile and all the subsoil (sandy clay) in another pile.

 

Then spread the sandy clay first then the top soil then grass seed.

 

Job done. Nothing left site, flat lawn at the end all done with my 3t digger.

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Just now, ProDave said:

We just dug all the topsoil and put that in a pile and all the subsoil (sandy clay) in another pile.

 

Then spread the sandy clay first then the top soil then grass seed.

 

Job done. Nothing left site, flat lawn at the end all done with my 3t digger.

So just spreading the subsoil and topsoil over the existing grass is enough to smooth it out? Cool, sounds like plan.

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10 minutes ago, Ralph said:

So just spreading the subsoil and topsoil over the existing grass is enough to smooth it out?

Definitely, then either turf if you want an instant lawn of seed if your not in a big rush. Both of these do need final levelling / raking depending on how good you want the finish. 

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Just now, Cpd said:

Definitely, then either turf if you want an instant lawn of seed if your not in a big rush. Both of these do need final levelling / raking depending on how good you want the finish. 

 

We're looking to keep it "natural" rather than like a putting green. We also have quite a lot of wildlife including tasty, tasty pheasants that I would like to come back after the upheaval of the build.

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Don't get me started on pheasants...

 

Some may recall that we had this cheeky sod banging his beak repeatedly at our front door last year:

 

pheasant.thumb.JPG.8d319e8a70dc648a9e3f30af973c3d40.JPG

 

Well, he's back...

 

I'm getting fed up with opening the door and chasing him away.  It seems that he can see his own reflection, assumes it's a rival, and then sets about head butting the window.  The bugger's far too dim to realise that he's not banging his head on another cock pheasant, so every time I shoo him away he comes back for another go ten minutes later.  Not only that, but he's crapping all over our front steps.

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2 minutes ago, Christine Walker said:

I hope you’re not going to eat him?

 

No, I was put off pheasant for life, having eaten it damned near every weekend as a child (my father was a keen shooter, so the house was always full of things he'd shot, and as children we had to eat them).  Full marks to my mother, as she must have invented dozens of different ways to cook pheasant, just because we all used to do the "Oh no, not pheasant again..." thing most weekends in the season.

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2 hours ago, Ralph said:

Not sure on the plant that will be working it, we have to be careful of the trees. Good point on the clay as there is a lot of it.

put in surface drains, plough it and when it gets a bit dry, it will at some point!, harrow and re-seed.

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Well you should be looking at seeding  it with a wild flower meadow mix, would be great. I have a huge sprawling garden that I have created from heavily grazed  sheep land, it’s a work in progress but I’m six years in....... 

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2 minutes ago, Cpd said:

Well you should be looking at seeding  it with a wild flower meadow mix, would be great. I have a huge sprawling garden that I have created from heavily grazed  sheep land, it’s a work in progress but I’m six years in....... 

I like the sound of that. 

This is what it currently looks like from the clearing. Those hill are mostly shooting estates, hence the pheasants everywhere.

Plot.thumb.jpg.b6360d05a0c364b03a7ce8e60f60107b.jpg

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3 hours ago, Ralph said:

I like the sound of that. 

This is what it currently looks like from the clearing. Those hill are mostly shooting estates, hence the pheasants everywhere.

Plot.thumb.jpg.b6360d05a0c364b03a7ce8e60f60107b.jpg

 

 

Lovely views @Ralph, where in the world is that. It looks like it could be North Northumberland / Scottish Borders?

 

4 hours ago, JSHarris said:

 

No, I was put off pheasant for life, having eaten it damned near every weekend as a child (my father was a keen shooter, so the house was always full of things he'd shot, and as children we had to eat them).  Full marks to my mother, as she must have invented dozens of different ways to cook pheasant, just because we all used to do the "Oh no, not pheasant again..." thing most weekends in the season.

 

And @JSHarris, we too are just beginning to embark on a pheasant fueled diet! 

 

Image may contain: bird

 

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10 hours ago, Redoctober said:

 

 

Lovely views @Ralph, where in the world is that. It looks like it could be North Northumberland / Scottish Borders?

 

 

 

Thanks, it's actually in Angus, that's a view west towards the Cairngorms. That's a cracking location and house you have there yourself. It must be very satisfying to be finished, although I don't suppose that you're ever truly finished.

We've had to go back to a complete redesign, new planning, new architects the lot. It's a massive amount of stress but I just need to spend a few minutes on the plot to recharge the positivity. 

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8 minutes ago, Ralph said:

Thanks, it's actually in Angus, that's a view west towards the Cairngorms. 

Ha! I was looking at those hills really hard and thinking I know those bloody hills...... I kept thinking Cairngorm but could not get the placement, well that’s because the only place I have never viewed then from is Angus ! Never even been there. Spent many years building walking tracks, dry stone walling and timber cutting in the Cairngorm and if I was not working Them I was playing, winter and summer climbing, snowboarding, hill running, shoooting, Fishing etc... it was always going to be there or here that I lived and in the end the ocean won and I settled in Argyll.  

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May be best to build the berms out of the clay that you have loads of and dress it with topsoil, we had tons of thick solid sticky yellow clay and dammned near impossible to do anything with it, I still have about 80 tons to find a home!

Edited by joe90
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Can you build a landscaped backdrop berm against which to shoot errant pheasants safely? That would use up some soil.

 

Not being a shooter I am not sure of the details except that it must be done safely and within your own land or with permission from the landowner.

 

F

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If the purpose of the berm is to stop the stream flooding the site when in spate, then building it out of a clay core sounds a good plan.

 

I guess we sort of did that, we raised the ground level on the house side in the process of leveling the plot, but left the ground level on the other side of the burn at it's original lower level so can be a mini flood plane if the burn ever over tops.

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