Clay soil, lawns, trees and moss - advice?!

[MixedupMartha]

We currently have our house on the market. We've been here for 12 years and have struggled with our east-facing garden and clay soil.

About three years ago, we enlisted the help of "Greenthumb", who have done a great job of turning it around. It's never going to be the best lawn in the world, but it's much thicker and much greener and there's less moss and fewer weeds.

Anyhow - as I said - we're on the market now and this morning we went to view a house that we might like to buy - but I have some concerns about the garden since this will be our "forever home" and I don't want to buy the wrong garden!

The house had been occupied by an old lady, who was in her nineties and has now passed away. It has a south-facing garden, but being within about a mile of our current home, it's also built on a clay soil. The front of the house obviously points north and there's a significant problem with moss on the driveway/roof/front porch. I'm guessing a good pressure wash will sort it out and I doubt she had time for this sort of maintenance.

The back garden is mainly lawn and appears to have been looked after quite well with regard to trimming of hedges, edging of flowerbeds etc. But.... the lawn!

To the rear of the property is a row of Leylandi belonging to another property. I'm guessing they must be at least 20 feet in height and whilst not overgrown, they could do with a chop. We viewed the property at 9.30am on a clear day and these trees were overshadowing 50% of the lawn.

To the side (west) of the property there are several mature trees which are situated in the gardens of neighbouring properties (these properties lie at right angles to the one we've looked at). The properties to the west are slightly elevated. At 9.30am they were obviously casting no shadow, but they are quite large trees and I felt needed reducing in height. One is within about 10 metres of the property's garage, where we would be looking to extend the property.

The lawn is in very bad shape really. It looks okay from a distance but closer inspection reveals it's full of moss. There were a couple of large brown patches of dead-looking moss and it was very spongy underfoot.

My question is - what would your feeling be about buying this house? Do you think the lawn would be redeemable? I think the lady was using a landscape gardening service (there was a card by the front door) but I have no idea whether they have tried to maintain the lawn aside from mowing it.

You might be able to pursuade the owner of the leylandi to reduce it's height, since I think there is a law requiring it to be kept to 6ft if anyone complains.

The neighbouring trees are another matter, and although you feel they "needed reducing in height" the person who owns the trees may well be quite happy with them and unless they overhang your garden I don't think you have any say.

It does sound like the garden is important to you, so maybe these issues will be enough to put you off buying, but only you can decide that!

I like moss it's green and doesn't need cutting IMO. I'd go back at different times of the day to check the shadows from the trees.

When I had a similar lawn, neighbours trees meant it never completely dried out, and I frequently mowed (Hovermower only) in wellies throughout the year. I gave up on spiking lawn/sprinkling sand after first two years as so little improvement, and simply added wildflowers in parts and called it a meadow away from the house. A friend offered loan of anti-moss machine, but rarely dry enough. My present house is lawn-free after these experiences, so if I were you I'd keep looking or have alternative to lawn.

If the overshadowing trees aren't yours then you are always going to have a problem - if their current owners wanted them smaller they would have dealt with them already. I think the 8ft rule on leylandii only works for newly planted ones: chopping back old ones always looks naff (IMHO). And if they are currently only 20ft tall they could happily grow another 20ft in the blink of an eye. So basically you probably can't do much about the shade.

In theory you could do drastic work to the lawn to help it - take off the current moss turf, add vast quantities of grit and compost and possibly lime so the soil drains better and grass likes it more, plough it all in to a very good depth and reseed with seed that doesn't mind shade. However, it's always going to be a bit of a battle.

For me this would be a dealbreaker but then I prioritise the garden over the house!

Thanks for your replies - I only just saw them, they're really helpful.