# Forum Home Renovation Landscaping, Gardening & Outdoors  replacing front yard soil

## havabeer

so re doing the front yard at the moment, have taken approx 200mm or so of clay and crap off the top and i'm replacing it with some proper "native specific garden soil"   i want to try and level it off as best i can following the red line in the picture below, doesn't have to be perfect but a stead taper towards the front fence would be good. I'm just wondering what or if i need to do anything compacting wise. Obviously when laying a path on sand for pavers etc i would screed, compact, screed, compact until its all flat. I'm just a bit unsure if i need to do this with the garden soil. I obliviously don't want to it rock hard. but:   do i throw the soil down screed it off lightly stomp or hand tramp the whole lot throw some more soil on and screed it off   i'm going to be walking around on it a fair bit putting in some native grasses, lighting some stepping stones etc and you sink a fair way into the soil at the moment when walking around at the moment (green arrow). so how compact should garden soil be? I assume its not too big of a problem as i can just looses up the area's when we put plants in    also not sure if i'll put some mulch or woodchip on top. Aiming for a fairly low height and low maintenance garden with just native grasses (lomandra lime tuff and little cons), a decorative boulder and the Grasstree/black boy as the feature which is why he's already there    
little con

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## John2b

If the soil is light and fluffy it will slump badly in the first heavy rain. I probably run a small roller over it, also to even out bumps and dips that would otherwise cause water to pool.

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## johnc

My approach would be rake and screed to get your garden levels, give it a good drink with soaker hose or sprinkler which will help it settle by getting rid of air pockets. Rinse and repeat with rake and screed. It isn't a lawn, with our garden beds we have always had height variation with rises and falls depending on how we want water to pool or move away.

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