u/ButeoMilvus

Hi all. I am in the process of buying my first house (a new build), and we have been told that our garden will be 55m2 - approximately 6m x 9m.

We currently only have the plans to our house, as it has not yet been built, and I’m finding it really difficult to visualise how much space we will have to work with! Would anybody be able to share pictures of your similarly sized gardens to help me plan the space we will have?

Thank you!

Hi all

We’re buying a new build with a bare earth garden (we have declined turf), so we’ll be starting from scratch. Our plan is to hopefully improve the soil quality (fix drainage if needed, improve topsoil, and level everything), then seed the lawn ourselves.

We complete in November, so the plan below assumes the ground is workable (i.e. damp but not waterlogged).

I’d really appreciate any thoughts or improvements on the process:

Planned method

1. Remove surface debris (stones, rocks, construction waste, etc)
2. Rotavate on a shallow depth setting (to avoid creating a plough pan), then remove any newly surfaced debris
3. Rotavate again on a medium depth setting in a different direction
4. Rotavate at deepest depth setting to incorporate the manure
5. Rake level
6. Use a levelling rake to flatten topsoil
7. Seed lawn and apply additional topsoil/water/fertiliser

Questions
Timing: is late November too late to seed grass effectively in the UK?
Topsoil: in step 7, should I rotavate again to mix in the topsoil, or leave it as a top layer?
Season: if November is too late for seeding, would it be better to wait until spring for this? Is there anything I could do in the meantime?
Soil treatment: if a soil test confirms heavy clay (and potentially high sodium), is applying gypsum worthwhile before starting, or unnecessary?