Conifer roots after Rotavating

turtleparker

Hello. This is my first entry into gardening forums but I’m at my wits end and hoping someone with experience can help me out a little ? 
Ive gone back to square 1 with my poor undernourished shabby looking garden .. this is due to once having a 30 foot run of 30 feet high confers down the length of my garden. I hired a mini digger and took all the dumps out after having them professionally chopped down and also with the digger took the top 3-4 inch off the old mossy and patchy grass and so left with 40square feet of hard soil. Rotavated this and now I’m so deflated because I’ve got a huge patch of soil that is full of stones , half bricks and most annoyingly hundreds of tiny conifer roots sticking up 5-6 inch out of the soil. I’ve raked all the stones and the bits of conifer roots that the rotavator cut through but still there’s hundreds. What’s the best thing to do now ?? Please help .. don’t know whether I need to manually pull them all out 1 by 1 or use something to kill them all off .. I’m looking to hopefully get it nice and flat to re-turf it but at the moment it’s just crap dry soil with loads of roots poking up. Nightmare !! 
Thanks in advance for any help and advice. 

Andy .. the deflated amateur gardener.  

BobTheGardener

No need to worry about the bits of broken conifer roots as they won't regrow and will rot down in the soil eventually.  The stones will help with drainage, but best to remove anything half-brick size or larger.  However, it does sound like the area would benefit from a few inches of good quality topsoil being spread over it before re-turfing.

barry island

The neighbours at the bottom of my garden had a row of conifers taken down and a couple of years later I dug the border on my side of the fence expecting to have trouble with the conifer roots, there weren't any they seem to rot down very quickly.

turtleparker

turtleparker

Thankyou Bob and Barry. Great advice. Thanks. 

Posy

Oh Andy, you have my sympathy! Some of those big pieces will have to be pulled out. Dig in as much muck as you can and focus on how great it's going to be in the future!