Top Soil in Virginia: Rebuilding the Ground Around New Hardscape

The order usually comes in after the hard work is finished. A patio has gone in, a creek line has been cut through the back garden, or a fire pit has been set, and what is left around all of it is compacted subsoil, wheel ruts and a strip of bare ground where nothing will grow. Top Soil is the material that puts a growing layer back over that, and the depth it goes down at decides whether the grass takes in six weeks or sulks for two seasons.

Screened to a sand, silt and clay balance, with the stones taken out

The product is screened so that rocks, roots, stray debris and oversized clumps are removed, which is what makes it spread and grade evenly. The grading is a balance of sand, silt and clay, so it holds moisture and still lets water through instead of behaving like either pure sand or pure clay.

Three things follow from that, and they set the boundaries for everything below.

• It is a growing layer, not a structural one. It never carries a load and it never becomes a base.
• It is a cap, not a cure. Spreading it over compacted, badly drained ground gives you a thin good layer sitting on a bad one.
• It settles. What you rake level will be lower after the first heavy rain, which is why the depth you order is not quite the depth you finish with.

Three jobs around new hardscape: patio verges, creek bed margins and a fire pit ring

The projects that create the bare ground also define the three shapes this material gets ordered in.

• The verge around a paver patio. A band of compacted, scraped ground follows the edge of every patio build. It needs stripping back to a consistent depth, loosening, then filling with soil to a level slightly proud of the paver edge so it settles flush rather than into a trench that collects water.
• The planted margins of a dry creek bed. The channel itself takes stone. The shoulders either side are what make it read as landscape rather than trench, and they are also what holds the bank together. Plant into soil there, not into the spoil that came out of the cut.
• The turf ring around a fire pit surround. The circle of trampled ground outside the seating area is the hardest patch in the garden by the end of a build. It takes the same treatment as the patio verge, and it wants a fall away from the seating so water does not pool at the edge of the paving.

Where Top Soil sits on red Piedmont clay, low Tidewater ground and thin valley soil

The same screened material behaves differently over three grounds, and the depth should change accordingly.

• Piedmont clay, through the Richmond, Charlottesville, Lynchburg and Danville areas, is heavy, often red, and drains slowly over a deep layer of soft decayed rock. A thin skim over unbroken clay creates an interface roots will not cross. Break the surface of the clay first and blend the two layers where they meet.
• Tidewater and Coastal Plain ground across Hampton Roads, the Eastern Shore, the Northern Neck and the Middle Peninsula is flat, sandy in places, and has water sitting close to the surface. There the risk is the opposite one: a growing layer over ground that stays wet all winter drowns roots rather than starving them. Sort the grade before the soil arrives.
• The valleys west of the Blue Ridge often have thin, rocky soil with rock close to the surface, so the imported layer is doing more of the work and depth matters more.
• Freeze-thaw is moderate over most of the state and harder in the Blue Ridge and the mountains, which lifts and loosens a fresh layer through its first winter. Autumn work has the advantage of a long settling period before spring growth.

The seasonal limit here is not usually cold. It is a long wet spell leaving clay saturated, or the late-summer and autumn storm season on the coast, either of which turns a soil delivery into mud before it is spread.

Depth for a lawn, a bed and a low spot, and what happens after the first rain

Decide depth by what has to root into it, then add for settlement.

Counting the load for a back lawn, a patio verge and a fire ring

Square feet times depth in inches divided by 12 gives cubic feet. Divide by 27 for cubic yards.

• Example, a back lawn 40 ft by 18 ft at 3 inches: 720 square feet x 0.25 = 180 cubic feet. 180 / 27 = 6.7 cubic yards.
• Example, a verge 3 ft wide around a 12 ft by 16 ft patio, so roughly 56 ft of edge, at 4 inches: 168 square feet x 0.333 = 56 cubic feet. 56 / 27 = 2.1 cubic yards.
• Example, a turf ring 12 ft across with a 7 ft fire pit surround left out, at 3 inches: 0.785 x (144 - 49) = 74.6 square feet. 74.6 x 0.25 = 18.7 cubic feet. 18.7 / 27 = 0.7 cubic yards.

This site publishes roughly 2,200 lb per cubic yard for screened topsoil, about 1.10 tons per yard, and that weight is approximate: the back lawn above is 6.7 x 1.10 = roughly 7.4 tons, with the patio verge about 2.3 tons and the turf ring about 0.8 tons.

Order a little over rather than under, because a soil job finished short leaves a visible seam. The topsoil calculator converts cubic yards into tons for this material.

Wheelbarrow runs are short work on a small verge and long work on a full lawn, so think about where the load lands before you book. Delivery is arranged at checkout from your ZIP code, and the driver needs a firm spot to tip on that is not the middle of the lawn you are about to seed.