Lawns
You may need to cross a garden to get to other gardens, or you may just wish to pass on advice for householders who will be digging their own spur. There will be lawns. Lawns will be the bit that shows most. Some lawns are very precious to their owners.
Key points
1 fully liaise with the owner
2 a single cut and peeling back the turf gives the best results
3 bury the duct at least a foot deep
4 consider using marker tape
This is how it actually looks when finished. If the grass was longer it would look a lot better.
If you don't use sheeting it works fine, it's just a bit muddier.
A lawn needs to be really neat when you have finished.
These are the complete instructions to give the best results. If it was your own lawn, a fairly scruffy lawn, or the owner was happy that it would soon repair itself anyway, then you could ignore some of these pointers.
A mini-digger is possible and so is a full blown tractor-moleplough in rare cases. A petrol turf-cutter machine exists that can be hired. But we are really talking about hand-digging.
Cutting slabs out method. This is simpler and gives you more room to work, but will not repair itself as well as 'flipping'
Flipping is not always possible, but if the grass will peel nicely it is worth trying.
If you have limited sheeting, then you can just work on one side of the trench
Over-long detailed advice
Before you begin
1 Assess the garden for prim-ness, to see how neatly it will have to be done.
2 Liaise with the owner closely. Make him fully aware of what it will look like, be factual, do not say it will be wonderful. You need to explain it so that the result is better than he thought it would be. Ask about cables and stuff - utility cables are usually deep, and also difficult to damage by hand, but there could be some domestic wiring to a pond-pump or garden lighting which is vulnerable.
Will he be there on the day?
Best time of year - early summer, after a wet spell. Grass not recently cut.
Begin
1 You should already have chosen start point A and end point B. Pick a line. Straight gives you the least digging. Straight also means that it is easier to locate in future. But it can be useful to curve and give a wider birth to anything that might have important or big roots. The line may have to change if you come across underlying rock for example.
2 Marking out a line at the outset enables several people to work at once. You could use a string.
3 Make a single cut along your line. (A zigzag herringbone cut would actually look better quicker when finished, but no-one’s going to do that)
4 Decide a suitable width. It needs to be spade width so that you can dig at right angles to the trench.
5 Lay plastic sheeting or boards both sides of the trench
6 Take the turf off. Peeling under the top 3 inches and flipping it back from a single cut line will give the best finish. Otherwise taking the turves out completely from between 2 parallel cuts means it is a bit easier to work. This turf goes to one side of the trench, all the soil goes the other side.
7 Dig down at least a foot. Any set of ducts including core fibre really needs to be a few more inches down. Most of the work will be done with a spade, but a pick is good for getting down an inch or two more. A trowel can be effective. An iron bar is good for eking stones out.
8 Flatten out the bottom of the trench.
9 Lay the duct into the trench in a tight bunch
10 Half backfill the trench
11 Spread marker tape in the trench.
12 Finish backfilling, using up nearly all the backfill, maybe excluding a few stones.
13 Put the turf back on. If you have removed the whole turf then they will need to be put back very tightly against each other.
14 Take away the plastic sheeting.
15 Then stamp the turves down, or hit with the flat of a spade, or tamp with a sledge hammer. Maybe several times
16 Rake and/or brush over the whole area.
17 Add grass seed (of the right type)
18 Water the area
Photograph the finished result for future reference.
Photograph for your Facebook page - from low down at right angles to the trench makes it look best.
In a long dry spell the cut you made will widen readily, the ground needs to be watered from time to time.
Liaise with the owner. Make sure he is happy. Contact him after 2 and 4 weeks to see it is okay.