Lawn Drainage and Clay Issue

[deemo]

Hi

Just moved into a house and i've found the lawn to be very wet even after a couple of days of no rain.

There seems to be a couple of things at play

1) Not all the lawn catches the sun so it's probably wetter in the shades.
2) The soil seems to be clay like and hard.
3) One of the areas with least sun also now has least grass

I've serached and tried reading the forum with regards to this issue and i'm still confused.

I have raked and aireated the lawn. I'm not sure if thats enough as to be honest during airation with a garden fork i only found a few areas where it was hard to get into other part we not too bad.

People offer various solutions. Some say apply fish, blood and bone to help with clay. etc

I was thinking of top dressing. But was not sure of what type of sand to use.

i.e Sharp, builders, kiln dried

Do i have to wash the sand before applying

Should i mix with Peat or mulitcompost.

How can i make the underlying soil better quickly with out actually digging up the whole lawn.

Would creating a bed around the edges of the lawn help at moment lawned to fence all around

Thanks

 

[danhawkins88]

i would personally put some soakaway crates in the ground, in the worst affected areas, they are designed to hold 190 ltrs and soak the disperce the water into the ground aswell.

 

[r896neo]

If you don;t want to go the whole hog and put in drainage the best thing to try is aerating.

This should be done with a hollow core machine and then brush grit sand into the holes.

Forking it over is fine but will never achieve the same level of sucess.