Soil improver/compost/manure?

[Citygirlrurallife]

Our front garden needs totally redoing, after suffering the effects of being a building site. First thing we need to do lay cardboard and then put soil improver/compost/manue on top to stop the weeds and scraggy grass growing and to break down into the soil so we can plant properly in a few months but in overwhelmed by what exactly we should be putting down. Flowers and fruit trees no veggies, very thick clay soil…

To be honest any organic matter will do. Not bark chip as you want something which will breakdown and be taken down by the worms. So composted manure, mushroom compost anything sold as soil improver. You may be able to buy the mulch produced from garden waste bins. You don't want top soil either. Mushroom compost isn't really ideal if you have Rhodendrons. Aim for at least 50litres per square metre but 100 litres per square metre wouldn't be too much.

Brilliant Thankyou!!!

Pete’s peatfree is the best stuff I’ve ever used…used it to topdress and the results were fantastic. He’s a small operation and his product is more expensive.

Thankyou, it’s a reasonably big space so I am a bit concerned about cost. Any specific recs are appreciated

If it's been a building site, then the soil will have become very compacted, and that's no good at all if you are on clay. It will be totally solid and roots & water will struggle to penetrate it

Sorry to have to say this, but you will need to do some heavy groundwork before putting anything on top. Remove all evidence of building work, bits of brick etc, and the worst culprit is if they had a concrete mixer in one place and you've got cement or lumps of concrete around where it was standing. This is extremely alkaline so try and dispose of as much of that as you can. Then, you will need to go over the whole area and break up the hard clay base by using a garden fork pushed in at least 6 inches and wiggled about, preferably actually dug over. Whilst doing that you can remove stones and the roots of any tough perennial weeds.

After all that, you can begin to think about adding soil improver. Basically any organic matter will do - spent compost from flower pots, composted bark, whatever in the way of compost the garden centre is selling cheap. I've used the contents of growbags before. It would also be worth incorporating handfuls of horticultural grit and/or sharp sand.

The good news 😂 is that clay soil is fertile.

Thankyou - the actual garden bit wasn’t a building site, stuff was just dumped there before going into the skip so no cement or concrete around it and it’s all been cleared, just means it’s all mud and scraggy grass underneath and wasn’t much of a garden in the first place, good tips about what to put on top though and I’ll def rake/fork/dig what’s there to loosen it first

again thanks for the tips, never had a garden before so a total novice

Sure, no problem. Moorland Gold is also very good.

If you don’t like the cost of the Sarah Raven borders, you can make a note of the plants she uses, and buy them from other nurseries. There are also loads of free border plans on line. This is a nice one
https://c02.purpledshub.com/uploads/sites/40/2022/08/ravishing-beauty-pdf-to-download-3214b9d.pdf

This guide is really good too: https://www.rhs.org.uk/garden-design/how-to-plan-a-border

If you don’t have one already, get a compost bin. Good luck with your garden!