Straighten the garden: 3 ideas to level the ground

By nature, garden floors are not level. This bothers many garden owners because an uneven ground in the garden is often difficult to work on and has a negative effect on the maintenance work. Fortunately, appropriate methods can be used to resolve this problem, since Garden soil is movable earth that can be brought into the desired shape with sufficient work can be.

preparation

An important step before leveling is improving and checking the floor. This should be editable, because there are often numerous obstacles or objects that make it difficult to use the devices or tools. For this reason, check the straightening surface for the following materials and objects, which you then remove as much as possible:

• Stones
• Roots, branches, other parts of the plant
• Rubbish
• movable pieces of furniture
• Garden tools
• construction materials
• rubbish

The fewer objects or parts of plants are in the way, the easier it is to use the methods below for straightening the ground. Stones in particular are often a problem because they are very difficult to remove. If you don't

race small stones are no problem, but in an emergency you can use a roller sieve for this. Roots, on the other hand, can be quite a headache, especially if they belong to a tree or a plant that is true to its location. In this case, you have to think about how to implement them appropriately. To make your work even easier, you should also mark out the corresponding area:

• Place the post around the desired area
• Tension cords between them
• place this a few centimeters above the ground
• Determine the highest and lowest point of the surface using a plumb line

Once you've found the highest and lowest point, you can choose a value between the two numbers to bring the area to that height. This will make it easier for you to decide which of the garden floor leveling ideas is best for your project. With a small gap between the two values, you can often leave a little more leeway.

tip: If your garden soil is criss-crossed by large stones, in most cases you will have to rely on heavy equipment or the help of a professional. Since stony soils in the garden can only be removed effectively with tools such as a pickaxe, straightening them is very laborious and time-consuming.

Straighten the ground

Once the floor is prepared, you can start leveling. Depending on the size of your garden or the area to be worked on, it can be helpful if you have someone else to help you with the different methods. It can sometimes take a little longer to get a level surface, especially if you don't rely on heavy grading equipment and have to move everything by hand. In total, there are three ideas with which you can level the floor on your own and do not have to pay really high costs. These are especially recommended when pounding is not helpful.

tip: A possible alternative to the ideas below is pouring a foundation if you don't need the soil in the garden for plants. In this way, the garden soil can be leveled just as effectively, only you need significantly more work and materials.

Ablation

The removal of the soil has proven to be an elaborate, but easy to implement method to straighten it since time immemorial. As the term suggests, with this method you remove so much soil until the desired depth is reached, the garden soil is thus level and can be used for your purposes without any problems. This is especially recommended if you want to adapt an elevation like a slope system or if you find hills on the property that are simply disturbing. You need the following tool for the removal:

• spade
• shovel
• optional: pickaxe
• gloves

As already mentioned, a pickaxe is especially useful for solid stone accumulations. You do not always see such stones, as they are a little deeper in the earth and can often only be seen when they are removed. To use this method, simply start by removing the earth in the higher areas with a spade or shovel. The choice of tool depends on the structure and compaction of the soil. If you have to remove a sward, for example, the spade is recommended first and then the shovel. Proceed with the excavation as follows:

• collect in wheelbarrow
• mix together if necessary
• Put in a roll sieve if necessary
• this will allow you to remove even more stones
• Fill in the area with excavated earth

The excavated earth is simply distributed generously to the desired height on the surface to be leveled. Most importantly, you need to close holes or indentations to allow the ground plane. This should be compacted a little with a hand rammer or a vibrating machine and can then be covered with the remaining excavated earth. Alternatively, you can spread gravel, sand or a larger amount of additional soil on this. It is important here to compensate for the unevenness by removing the higher-lying floor parts with which the lower-lying parts are filled.

Fill up

When filling in, you use a similar tactic as when removing it, only you completely forego the redistribution of the existing soil material. For this you mainly need a substrate or sediment to fill in the soil, with which you will level out unevenness. A large selection is available for this, which you can easily mix with each other:

• Earth
• sand
• gravel

When choosing the soil, you should rely on conventional garden soil, which is best from the same region. A combination with sand significantly improves the permeability of the soil in the garden, which of course benefits your plants. Even lawns benefit from it. It is important that when filling, you make sure to reach the desired height after compacting. For this reason, you need around 15 percent more material to fix the loss in height due to compaction.

tip: If you then want to use the straight garden soil to grow plants, you can also enrich it with compost. In this way, you save yourself this step and can devote yourself to gardening in a relaxed manner.

Hand roller

Hand rollers are classic garden tools that can be filled with sand or water and weigh between 50 and 200 kilos. This is the typical purpose of the devices Rollers of the lawn so that it is level and can form a dense sward. It is precisely this principle that you use to level small bumps that have arisen, for example, due to piles of earth or external forces. Unfortunately, it is not worth rolling to adjust different heights. Only the existing soil is distributed by the weight and thus a straight level is made possible. You will need the following utensils for this method:

• Hand roller
• Rake

You can either purchase hand rollers yourself or borrow them from hardware stores and specialist companies for around ten to twelve euros per day. Rely on strong tines for a rake, because fan brushes are not really suitable for this method. Once you have the utensils, use the following steps to level the garden:

• Remove the sward as necessary
• this makes it easier to use the roller
• In addition, differences in altitude are easier to see
• then distribute earth with a rake
• this reduces the height differences
• now guide the roller slowly over the floor
• avoid tight curves
• ride one lane after the other
• use more force on bumps
• this will level them out
• repeat until the entire surface is level

Admittedly, this method can take a long time depending on the condition of the soil and is also only suitable for the top layer. Straightening deeper holes is only possible with this method if you fill them in beforehand or remove larger heaps of earth. With this method, it is important that you distribute the soil in the garden as finely as possible. Therefore, you can also drive the roller into smaller clusters and thus displace them, which makes straightening a lot easier. However, like general use of the roller, this work step is a great help. So it's easier when you take turns with someone.

tip: If the bumps are only very small, you can use a simple wooden board instead of the hand roller to level the earth. Place this on part of the area and stomp on it to straighten the garden soil.