Repairing clay-like soil

[SMITHSCAPE]

I have an account that has extremely clay-like soil. It won't drain, which is causing weeds to overtake the little bit of good grass they have. I would like to propose a way to help them but I've never really dealt with this type of problem. Should I add some kind of organic matter? Any ideas would be appreciated.

[TJ LAWN]

Originally Posted by SMITHSCAPE

I have an account that has extremely clay-like soil. It won't drain, which is causing weeds to overtake the little bit of good grass they have. I would like to propose a way to help them but I've never really dealt with this type of problem. Should I add some kind of organic matter? Any ideas would be appreciated.

Well...You could dig the whole yard up and bring in good soil. But, I don't think the customer will pay for this...Aerate the crap out of the yard.Put down a pellitized Gypsum at the rate on the bag.....Top Dress with an organic materal..You can take it a step further..Aerate,Pellitized Gypsum, Topdress,Overseed, Fertilize...What ever you do short of tearing up the whole lawn is gonna be a slow process...Changing the soil profile is a SLOW process...

[Surfdunn]

Tj pretty much said it. If the customer has the funds, I would rent a machine and till the property, then top dress with compost then till again. The only thing i see wrong with aerating the property is how deep is the clay. If its 6" thick the aerater wont do to much where a tiller can get down and tear everything up.

[SMITHSCAPE]

I've already sold the customer on overseeding before I found out how bad the soil really was. I'm sure I can get them to agree on aeration and maybe top dressing. What is gypsum and what does it do for the soil?

[jmmjr78]

if you do the aerating, i would use an 18" deep tine aerator. you can get much better results, however, as they have said it will take a few years. but you have to add organics that is the only way tostart to correct. some people say add sand but i feel that will just make it worse. you would only be adding more fines to the soil