You will have to introduce some organic material and change its ph level before attempting to lay turf.
Growing grass on clay soil.
Grass grown in clay soil requires less frequent watering than lawns grown on sandy soil.
Plant cool season grasses as seed during the fall or early spring.
Once you re sure that your soil is good and healthy consider adding some earthworms to help keep your topsoil nice and loose.
Clay soil is made up of tons of small particles that stick together clinging to moisture.
Aerate after the ground thaws when soil is moist not soaking and during the growing season.
Varieties that grow in a clay loam soil include annual ryegrass colonial bent grass hard fescue kentucky bluegrass.
A bone dry clay soil is going to be rock hard and not allow water nutrients to get into the rootzone when the temperature start to get cooler but before the leaves start dropping start by aerating your lawn followed by an over seeding of appropriate seed type and apply an organic fertilizer.
The grass roots will work to break up and loosen the clay soil below.
Because clay soil can become compacted easily place about 3 to 4 inches 7 5 10 cm of the chosen soil amendment on the soil and work it gently down into the soil about 4 to 6 inches 10 15 cm.
Aerators remove plugs of dirt from the lawn and break up the soil allowing grass roots to spread.
The key to planting grass in clay soil is to first amend the soil to make it looser drier and more fertile.
A good way to determine the soil s moisture content is by sticking a screwdriver into the soil to a depth.
It can take up to two months of preparing the soil before you can actually plant your grass.
In the first season or two after adding organic material to the soil you will want to take care when watering.
There are very few air pockets under the soil surface and grass needs air pockets for root spread and development.
Even where a clay soil contains for example 40 percent clay particles a relatively modest content compared to heavy clay soils the proportion of clay in the top cultivated part of the soil would have to be reduced by half to make the soil easy to work.
Heavy clay red or otherwise is inhospitable to most plant life but there are things that you can do to make sure that your property has a healthy green lawn.
Uncle jim s worm farm sells 1 000 red wigglers for about 30 to give you an idea about price.
Follow some basic steps to make grass grow in red clay soil and establish a lawn that is the envy of the neighborhood.