[Help] Gardeners Question Time.

[Jack Straw]

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Just cound a new project for you

It's amazing the things Andy Murray gets up to since his hip operation!

 

[Stat Brother]

I've had a fortunate week.

Back in the day, when dogs roamed free at Stat Towers, the first quarter of the garden was fenced and flinted off for them.
About 3ft of that, from the back door heading north had returned to grass as the purple flint got compacted.

The 10ft sq rest of that section has looked poor, for x years, so Monday I decided to do something about it.

Christ knows how many bags of stones were piled into the square but as of today they're all gone now.


The good fortunate comes in on Wednesday as my neighbour had 10ft sq of turf outside their house with a 'free' sign.


Naturally the rather long preamble leads to the obvious question, which I probably know the answer too:-

What do I do to make sure new turf 'takes?'

 

[Jack Straw]

I've had a fortunate week.

Back in the day, when dogs roamed free at Stat Towers, the first quarter of the garden was fenced and flinted off for them.
About 3ft of that, from the back door heading north had returned to grass as the purple flint got compacted.

The 10ft sq rest of that section has looked poor, for x years, so Monday I decided to do something about it.

Christ knows how many bags of stones were piled into the square but as of today they're all gone now.


The good fortunate comes in on Wednesday as my neighbour had 10ft sq of turf outside their house with a 'free' sign.


Naturally the rather long preamble leads to the obvious question, which I probably know the answer too:-

What do I do to make sure new turf 'takes?'

The three most important things are;
Ensure that you have at least 300mm depth of soil, otherwise it will shrivel up as soon as it gets warm and you'll have a yellow patch every time we get dry weather.
Ensure that before you lay the turf, you have soaked the soil down to a depth of at least 150mm.
WLB as soon as you've laid it.

Do this and you can't go wrong.

 

[Stat Brother]

The three most important things are;
Ensure that you have at least 300mm depth of soil, otherwise it will shrivel up as soon as it gets warm and you'll have a yellow patch every time we get dry weather.
Ensure that before you lay the turf, you have soaked the soil down to a depth of at least 150mm.
WLB as soon as you've laid it.

Do this and you can't go wrong.

Thanks.

I nearly ticked all the boxes.

We roughed up the very compacted soil.
I did water it a couple of times but didn't drench it.

I did WLB once down so fingers crossed.

Oh and I also left some of the 'stones' to aid the sticking process.

 

[AmexRuislip]

It goes nowhere, just a dead end rear access for 15 or so houses.
Half of those don't even have a gate.
The fella who uses it the most mows it a couple of times a year.


Why?

I did have to do a double take

 

[Stat Brother]

OK I'll try and keep this brief.

As Lamie predicted the 10ft x 5ft pre side fence wall took a battering in the last storm and a third of it nearly came away from it's mortar.

Despite saying we'd do all the labouring, taking it down and clean the 70 odd bricks, buy the raw materials, etc, it's proving difficult to get someone in to 'bish bash bosh' it back together, for a bit of cash in hand.

So in the meantime I'm thinking I'd better support the 'tower' (which is loose 3 bricks up from ground level) that's connected to the fence which is causing the excessive wobbling.

No probs thinks I, a strip of angle iron, as low down as possible, on each corner and I'm away.


ToolStation has similar to everyone else.

1.5mm thick Aluminium Angle - which seems a bit lightweight to me.

But they also have

2mm thick Galvanised Steel 'holding down angle plate' - which although not ideal seems considerably better.

But that's about £30 cheaper.


I'm now convincing myself that as it's so cheap it must be shite.


Lucky I kept that brief

Will 5ft long strips of Galvanised Steel drilled onto the corners of a brick tower give it some/any support and would that support be better than it's thinner aluminium equivalent?

 

[Jack Straw]

OK I'll try and keep this brief.

As Lamie predicted the 10ft x 5ft pre side fence wall took a battering in the last storm and a third of it nearly came away from it's mortar.

Despite saying we'd do all the labouring, taking it down and clean the 70 odd bricks, buy the raw materials, etc, it's proving difficult to get someone in to 'bish bash bosh' it back together, for a bit of cash in hand.

So in the meantime I'm thinking I'd better support the 'tower' (which is loose 3 bricks up from ground level) that's connected to the fence which is causing the excessive wobbling.

No probs thinks I, a strip of angle iron, as low down as possible, on each corner and I'm away.


ToolStation has similar to everyone else.

1.5mm thick Aluminium Angle - which seems a bit lightweight to me.

But they also have

2mm thick Galvanised Steel 'holding down angle plate' - which although not ideal seems considerably better.

But that's about £30 cheaper.


I'm now convincing myself that as it's so cheap it must be shite.


Lucky I kept that brief

Will 5ft long strips of Galvanised Steel drilled onto the corners of a brick tower give it some/any support and would that support be better than it's thinner aluminium equivalent?

This seems a bit more buildiery than gardeny? However, what you suggest seems a good idea. Any photos of the problem?

 

[Stat Brother]

This seems a bit more buildiery than gardeny? However, what you suggest seems a good idea. Any photos of the problem?

The part of the wall across the fault-line is being supported on my neighbours side:-








I'm not looking for a permanent fix or anything.
I just want it supported enough so if we get and 25+mph wind between now and the rebuild it has a chance of still standing.

Would 2mm thick galvanised steel angle on all 4 corners, dug down to the foundations, provide that?

 

[Stat Brother]

Scrap all that.

I've just noticed one length of the steel is twice as long as need so I only require 2 pieces.
I'm not so tight I won't cough up a fiver just to see if this works or not.

 

[Jack Straw]

As the wall seems to be going towards your neighbours, you would need to put something their side? How about bracing it with strong pieces of wood? Two legs going in to the ground at an angle towards the wall and a length of scaffold board to spread the effect? You see this on a large scale when a terraced house is demolished and they don't want the ones either side to collapse!
Similar to this but with a cross-brace; https://www.borehamwoodtimes.co.uk/...-by-wooden-planks-in-meadow-park-borehamwood/

 

[Stat Brother]

As the wall seems to be going towards your neighbours, you would need to put something their side? How about bracing it with strong pieces of wood? Two legs going in to the ground at an angle towards the wall and a length of scaffold board to spread the effect? You see this on a large scale when a terraced house is demolished and they don't want the ones either side to collapse!
Similar to this but with a cross-brace; https://www.borehamwoodtimes.co.uk/...-by-wooden-planks-in-meadow-park-borehamwood/

Yeah that's what's in place, at the moment.

I'm hoping to take the strain off the wall, itself, by supporting the end and making that stronger.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

Maybe work out why it is cracking? Looks like something under the wall has given. Exploratory dig maybe?

 

[swd40]

I've had a fortunate week.

Back in the day, when dogs roamed free at Stat Towers, the first quarter of the garden was fenced and flinted off for them.
About 3ft of that, from the back door heading north had returned to grass as the purple flint got compacted.

The 10ft sq rest of that section has looked poor, for x years, so Monday I decided to do something about it.

Christ knows how many bags of stones were piled into the square but as of today they're all gone now.


The good fortunate comes in on Wednesday as my neighbour had 10ft sq of turf outside their house with a 'free' sign.


Naturally the rather long preamble leads to the obvious question, which I probably know the answer too:-

What do I do to make sure new turf 'takes?'

Fed my new turf this 6 weeks apart, so far so good, 10 weeks in.

https://www.turfonline.co.uk/pre-turf-feed-2kg/

 

[Stat Brother]

Maybe work out why it is cracking? Looks like something under the wall has given. Exploratory dig maybe?

The foundations seem fine.
It was an ivy wall, which looks to have got into the mortar.

The 'fault line' is a diagonal line from 3 bricks up on the left to the top of the wall but about 2 ft from the next/middle 'tower'.

As said it's only about 60 or 70 bricks that are effected, very frustrating.

 

[Stat Brother]

Fed my new turf this 6 weeks apart, so far so good, 10 weeks in.

https://www.turfonline.co.uk/pre-turf-feed-2kg/

Mine is so far so good.
Have been WLB and it looks nice.

I'm now resisting the temptation to lift it up to see if the roots are growing.

 

[Jack Straw]

Mine is so far so good.
Have been WLB and it looks nice.

I'm now resisting the temptation to lift it up to see if the roots are growing.

You'll probably find that if you do try to lift a turf up, you won't be able to because it's rooted in! Keep up WLB!

 

[Jack Straw]

The foundations seem fine.
It was an ivy wall, which looks to have got into the mortar.

The 'fault line' is a diagonal line from 3 bricks up on the left to the top of the wall but about 2 ft from the next/middle 'tower'.

As said it's only about 60 or 70 bricks that are effected, very frustrating.

Looking at the pointing, it seems a different colour from most of the wall so may have been repaired in the past, so there could be something afoot below ground level?

 

[swd40]

You'll probably find that if you do try to lift a turf up, you won't be able to because it's rooted in! Keep up WLB!

Chuffs WLB for those not in the know ?

 

[Jack Straw]

Chuffs WLB for those not in the know ?

Water like buggery!!:

 

[swd40]

Hopefully passed the daily (some times twice) stage after 3 weeks of WLB.

10 week old new lawn be ok, if it only gets a weekly B now but for a longer period of said Buggery?