Gardening and Landscaping Stack Exchange
Gardening and Landscaping Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [topsoil]

30 questions
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What exactly is top soil?

I have a really simple and maybe stupid question... Term top soil appears very often in almost any gardening subject - but what exactly is top soil?
False Identity
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For lawn, does fertilizing average soil make loam or topsoil less necessary?

In a perfect world, you'd add the best loam, top soil, manure, etc, then sprinkle the best fertilizer upon it, etc. But I'm asking for the average person, who's on a budget and working 60hrs per week and who's trying to get some OK results with…
Joe C
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Do we need to replace mulch with soil?

I am planning on planting vegetables and the old bed has decayed mulch which looks reddish and grounded. Do I need to dig out a few inches of this and replace it with soil? Is there a way to find out if this was organic or one of the treated…
Abhishek Misra
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Ideal way to fill in a large hole (from a goldfish pond)

The house we just bought had a goldfish pond in the back yard, which has been removed, leaving a hole roughly 1.5 meters squared, by 1 meter deep. I wish to fill in the hole, and plant a flower/vegetable garden over the current spot. What is the…
Flimzy
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How can I remove crabgrass from a Zoysia lawn, and flower beds?

We just bought a new house in Orlando. The home is great but we noticed crab grass taking over and a few other weeds. I'm a total noob with grass stuff, although I'm researching all I can. The grass type is Zoysia. Trugreen recently came and did…
Jay S.
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Laying new topsoil, what if anything to mix in for worms or to kickstart healthy ecosystem?

For reasons that would take too long to go into (tl;dr version - a combination of mass gradual soil movement needing soil engineering, bad development, old paving/topslabs, + ground levelling to address long term ground issues) the entire top…
Stilez
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How can I fix my garden turf?

When the wife and I bought our house a few years ago, the garden was an over grown mess. We hacked it down to make it presentable short term. When we came to sort it properly last autumn, budgets were tight and we probably didn't do what was…
TheMagicPirate
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Rubble Soil - can i re-use when turfing

I have a lawn which was previously levelled. The previous owner filled it with rubble. I'm planning on getting the rubble completely removed, levelled and re-turfed. My question is can I improve the existing soil below the rubble by using some…
WD2021
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Rocks and sticks in loam used by landscaper. What to do?

6 days ago I had a landscaping company perform a lawn renovation. The first few inches of the existing turf was removed and new loam was trucked in, followed by hydroseeding. Shortly after the hydroseeding, we had some pretty torrential rains…
MPR
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New topsoil has puddles on it

Problem My new front garden seems to have pools of water on it for a good few hours after rain. Background I've just had the front garden redesigned, leaving us with a brand new area for planting and a new driveway. The area where the garden now is…
mcampster
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Lawn top dressing - how much and how long does the grass need to get through?

I have a very low spot near a pathway I just built and a pile of soil that resulted from the excavation of the soil. I want to put the soil over the grass that is there, but I would like to know the answers to following questions: Is it a good…
MiniMe
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Remove Clay Soil and Install new soil that is good for Bermuda Grass

I would like to remove the top 2 inches of my compacted clay soil and replace it with the best soil to grow Bermuda grass. In other words my current soil is garbage that nothing will grow in so I plan to till it and remove the top 2 inches. After…
Landscaper3345
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Returning a garden paved for 30 years with packed clay below, back to lawn

My new rear garden has had concrete slab paving for decades, resting on heavily packed and deep London Clay soil and a small amount of odd rubble. The paved area measures about 6x7m. The soil under the slabs is solid with weed roots, even where…
Stilez
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Why is sand mixed in when levelling grass?

There are tons of videos on Youtube where they show how to level grass, where most if not all have sand mixed in. Why is sand mixed in? Couldn't I just use the top dressing as is?
Sandra Schlichting
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A section of land/soil is bad due to salt? How to fix?

A section of a alfalfa farm soil is bad. It is told that the cause is salty soil. What can be done to fix the soil? Update edit As requested by @csk , the source of the salt is: well, the land has been a salty desert and has been converted to farm…
Megidd
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