Removing artificial grass and growing clover

[CarolineKnappShappeyShipwright]

I have an area of artificial lawn I am chipping away at. It's a big job. It's well laid with an inch of compacted fine gravel that's white. Then 6-8 inches compacted hardcore that's a mixture of fine gravel and rock. Then a weed proof membrane before you get to the rocky clay soil. The area I'd like to plant with clover is probably 3x5m.

I have just prepared an area for hedging in which I dug down to remove the weed proof membrane. I had to do this because the plants will have deep roots. I've also sifted the hardcore to remove all the larger stones. But it leaves me with a lot of hardcore to dispose of and takes a huge amount of time.

Would clover manage to cope with the following. I would remove the white compacted fine gravel. I would loosen all 6-8 inches of the compacted gravel but I would probably only sift the top 2-3 inches to remove the larger stones. I would then add top soil / compost and manure to the top to bring the level back up. The area is low traffic so it wouldn't get disturbed much at all. Any advice appreciated.

RHS have some good guides on 'green manure' - and in that includes plants which can break up clay and really heavy soils. They will not be able to break up rocks or bricks.
I have had great success with compacted, building rubble filled, clay-ish soil with a year of green manure, which I then just dug over and planted grass as normal. It really, really improved things. You also get a mad, lovely meadow type lawn for a year!

Would you consider a Beth Chatto style gravel garden instead? It would be a lot less work to establish and also very environmentally friendly. I did this with my front drive (previously crumbling tarmac) and I love it. Then all you’d need to do is take up the lawn, pour gravel over your existing base then create island beds of drought tolerant, Mediterranean style plants. I thoroughly recommend her book on creating a gravel garden if you’re interested.

I removed an artificial lawn last year but didn't bother replacing with a new lawn, I kept some of the hardcore to provide paths and just removed it from where I wanted to plant... See Beth chatto advice above ...It looks amazing now! BTW I was amazed that loads of people paid to come and take the hardcore away, and the builders sand. If you advertise it on FB marketplace or Freecycle I'm sure you'll fine takers. We bagged all ours up ourselves, but if it's free people may even come and remove it for you...