Hi again,
yesterday I started a project I'd been putting off for a while. To explain, I guess I need to give some background - we bought this house about a year and a half ago. The previous owners were very ecologically minded and the entire yard is covered with inches of dark, rich decomposed mulch- great stuff. About 20 years' worth, to be exact, and the previous owners also planted some really great plants and flowers. However, they apparently did not understand the concept of proper grading - all around the house the grade level sloped in toward the house. I graded the side yard last year when we had an A/C unit installed, but the front still wasn't done. Yesterday I decided to start on the south side of the front yard, because it was all infested with chickweed anyway. I just shaved off the first inch or so and tossed it on the compost pile and then started grading. I got down another inch or two and hit the *original* "soil" which appears to be a sand/clay mix. So what I ended up doing was moving the topsoil out of the way, digging up some of the sand/clay and removing it, and then putting the topsoil back, mixing it with a little of the sand/clay to give it a little body. i figure that will make even better soil for planting.
Question is, what do I do with the excess sand/clay that I removed? I do have plans at some vague point in the future to put in some flagstone walkways, can I just save this stuff for that? If the answer is "maybe," how do I evaluate it to see whether it's suitable or not? If it's not, how the hell do I get rid of it? I've had a hard enough time getting rid of the "good stuff" where I've wanted to do so, I assume I'd have to pay someone to haul off simple fill, but I don't know where to start.
thanks,
nate