filling cracks

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Kent
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United Kingdom
We have a lot of cracks in our lawn, from the ground, which is heavy clay, drying out. What is the best thing to use to fill these cracks, some of which are large enough to put your foot in!
 
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er it was actually, the ground is cracking because the soil is drying out. Its not like cracks in the wall. filling them soil or compost etc will only be cosmetic. the real problem is lack of water.
 
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paul_round said:
:rolleyes:
Not very helpful!!

i dissagree.

as you know it has dried out, so if something has dried out you add water which is replacing what is missing. if you put soil or similar in it what will happen when it rains?
 
Yeah, but its not really feasible to put down the amount of water needed. All I want to do is fill with, (sand, earth, mixture, or whatever) so nobody twists an ankle on it.
 
Where are you in the country? I know it has been dry, but holes you can fall down :eek: Now that is dry.

As Thermo says, what it really needs is water. But you could fill the cracks with some good screened topsoil. Even better would be some John Innes No2 which will give some grit in the mixture etc to give it some body and better drainage (when there is something to drain).

Or some other soil based compost. Depending upon how deep the cracks are add the soil in 2 or 3 layers, gently compacting each layer. Then give it a week or 2 and go back and top up as it will also settle down a bit.

Then you can sow some grass seed on top, although probably better to wait until the autumn.

When the rains come the area may need some flattening as the soil around expands into the space it left behind which is now filled. But it should be no different to sand slitting a lawn. Where spaces are created in the lawn and then sand or top dressing mixture is added to fill the spaces. Unlike hollow tine aeration, where cores of earth are removed and the spaces filled.

Hope this helps

Andrew
 
Andrew, Thanks for the advice, I shall certainly try that!
I am in the Weald of Kent, the ground is very heavy clay and as I said, prone to some rather large cracks, large enough for our dog to lose a leg in, or indeed my youngest to twist a leg in whilst playing football. Whilst I understand the underlying reason for the cracking is lack of water, I suspect several hundred/thousand gallons would be needed to alleviate the problem.
 

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