Post building work garden

[Beggingforsleep]

Hi, need some advice about what to do with the garden post building work. Obviously it's a mess, I expected that, but the builder has redistributed a large pile (small mountain) of what he called top soil across it. In reality it was a mixture of everything that was dug out for the foundations so it has large chunks of chalk in it.

It's raised the level of the garden slightly and is uneven which is annoying as it was the only part of the garden that was originally level but I can level it out a bit. Just wondering what to do about the large chalk rocks. At the moment i'm using a wide rake to tease them out and making a pile for the builder to remove and put in the skip. But he doesn't know I'm doing this as he hasn't been for a week.

Is that the right thing to do? or is it fine to leave them and then use a whacker or something to smooth the surface before we turf? But taking them out is showing how much of the top soil was actually rocks and is helping to bring the level down and to lay turf we'll need to put some actual top soil on top won't we? Which will raise the garden even further.

Basically I don't know if I'm being precious about these rocks and if I can just leave them as it's hard work getting them out!

Did you ask him to redistribute it across your existing garden? Surely it should've been removed by him from the site unless you'd specifically asked for that to be done?

You'll get a better garden of you take them out.

I've got a rubble line in my front garden where a path used to be. There is basically about 2 or 3 inches of soil then sandy rubble. I've been redoing this area over the last year (it used to have hens on it) and am taking rubble out ever time I dig or plant. I just keep a bucket handy to throw them in and then bagging into sacks which go to the tip.

It's very annoying!

@Chasingsquirrels that’s what I thought. I’ll continue. Might just take a day off work to get through it as want to get it in the skip before it goes and avoid tip runs.

@Youaremysunshine14 no, I didn’t ask, he’s massively cut corners by doing it. But we’re coming to the end of 18 months of work and I’m choosing not to end it on a row. We’re a little sick of each other.