Turfing in a small back yard help!

Hi all,

We’re expecting our first baby later this year, so we’re trying to create a decent patch of real lawn for the garden rather than leaving it as gravel. This area gets a good amount of sun and is the obvious place for it.

I’ve already excavated the existing gravel and soil, but uncovered concrete underneath for the first 3rd of the space.

A few key points:

The area we’d like to turf is the one highlighted in the photos.

The slab only covers roughly the first 2 metres. Beyond that it’s normal soil.

The whole area is about 4m long by 3m wide.

The concrete isn’t flat. It’s bowed, with the lowest point in the middle, and it also falls towards the storm drain that runs down the side of the house (just out of view in the photos). The whole garden slopes towards to house too.

There is also an old manhole cover, although I’m not particularly worried about turfing over that if it’s acceptable.

My main concern is that from the existing paving to the highest points of the concrete I’ve only got around 50–55 mm before the finished lawn would sit above the paving. I’d ideally like the turf to finish almost flush with the paving, but I appreciate that’s not much depth for topsoil over concrete.

So my questions are:

Is turf over the slab a terrible idea with only around 55 mm available in a few places ?

If you were doing this, would you extend the paving out slightly to create a straight edge and gain a bit more depth over the concrete?

Or is there another solution I’ve not thought of?

The only alternative I’ve really considered is artificial grass, but I’d much prefer real turf if it’s practical.

I’d really appreciate any advice before I order topsoil and turf. Thanks!

You cant turf over concrete. Plus, any manhole needs to be accessible.

Koolpc said:

You can turf over concrete. Plus, any manhole needs to be accessible.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. Do you mean can't, the intention was to lay top soil first not just turf.

Yes, sorry..you can't lay turf over concrete

Leswin82 said:

Is turf over the slab a terrible idea

Click to expand...

Yes.

The problem is the homes damp course, that limits height. I have planted on tarmac, but I have around 12 inches of compost on top of the tarmac. And I am not sure if that is enough.

With a sleeper boarder so the lawn is at least 10" above the concrete it may work. In the same way as old people like me have raised beds so we don't need to bend as much.

We had a tiered garden formed noted the rhubarb to tie to next picture. It has now grown mainly weeds, but we can work on it, when it was a slope, we could not stand anywhere to work on the garden.

However, it needed a lot of building up, so where we put the shed at the bottom, we removed loads of topsoil to get the shed level. Top shed now steps. The little planter in front of the steps, took 4 large bags from B&M of compost to fill. It was a toss up, travel to North Wales where the council recycles garden waste as soil improver for free, can't use a trailer, so boxes in the boot, or buy it, and save petrol and time.

At £15 for 3 x 50 litre bags, seemed better to buy. But at £20 for a sleeper, the price starts to add up, is it worth it, rather than use imitation grass ? And maybe this stuff or simular underneath it it will mean the baby can't get to nature and play with worms, but not sure if that's a bad point anyway?

Setting turf atop concrete isn't a good idea, and in an area as small as that i'd settle for a rockery, raising it up with several levels of natural stone, seeded with suitable plants and moss - if you really want a lawn, make it in the center of your plot on a raised bed for added drainage where it'll receive more sunlight.

Although on a bed of 50cm soil and then the turf it will work untill you get some dry weather and it will dry out very quickly, way before the the rest of the grass. I would slab over the concrete and put the grass further up. You actually are better off slabbing the area directly outside the back door