Leah Herman

@kputnam - That's beautiful! So it's not dire, our yard. So confusing though. I'm looking for a soil expert in my area to come look at what we've actually got right now and give me advice. Thanks for the response. I'm new to this, and I'm learning from all of you.

Anyone have experiment with clod-breaker amendment? Is it effective? Useful? Any problem with it?

Thanks all for your responses. I've heard from landscapers around here that it's fairly awful to have had so much soil hauled away, and a big problem to have only clay subsoil. I want yo plant a mindfully planned garden with fruit trees, edibles, flowers for cutting / pollinators / hummingbirds / butterflies. Apparently roots will get stumped at the subsoil if it's not properly attended to and will die? I love the hay idea, but I don't want a hay lawn. It's a small yard - 35x40, that will have many jobs. I don't have space to create my own compost pile, though we are lookin at a contained backyard composer. Rats are definitely an issue. Any idea what all this means?

@Tobias.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

You know, I'm not ready to plant yet. I have a small child and want her to be able to run around and play while we figure out a landscape design. Do you have thoughts on whether 4-5 inches of mulch is enough, or whether I should layer comoost under the mulch, or just being in topsoil with mulch over it that will sit for quite some months while we figure out what to do?

Hi all,

We just took off about 12 inches of soil from our yard - it had been covered in concrete for decades before we moved in. Needed to grade and lower the overall level of the yard for various reasons. We now have a 35' x 40' area that's clay subsoil with no topsoil. We'll begin landscaping in about 12 months. What do we put on top? Mulch? Compost? A combo? And how many inches? We can amend and bring in topsoil if we must before we plant (edibles, lots of flowering plants for pollinators, and a few trees and hedgeseventually). For now we want to start building that topsoil from what we've got.