Best advice to cure flooding garden

[skybluescooby]

Hi,
After a few years of internal projects the time has come to tackle the back garden, Over the past 3 years i have noticed that it saturates very easy and takes days to soak away, any further rainfall only causes the right hand side of the garden to flood, The garden slopes from left to right approx 12" over a 30ft wide garden, The neighbours garden to my left slopes towards my garden so i get his run off but the garden to my right is level hence the flooding down the right hand side.

Now i am in the position to tackle this task with an open mind and an empty canvas as i intend to strip the grass and start afresh, with this in mind what options do i have to tackle this problem.

I want to try and avoid digging in drainage drains due to the time and cost, Im thinking after stripping the grass back should i import a few tonne of topsoil and raise the lawn in line with the current fall so it follows the lie of the land and continues down into the neighbours garden and so on to the next etc

Any ideas, tips, hints, pictures, links welcome

 

[breezer]

should i import a few tonne of topsoil

you cant do that becuse you said

time and cost

make your mind up

 

[skybluescooby]

surely its far cheaper and quicker importing topsoil than it is digging trenches, laying and running off pipes, backpiling and praying it works.

Just wanted some advice and not sarcasm. But i have noticed that sarcasm is creeping into a few more posts these days, must be a mad world out there or i guess the season of goodwill and good spirit has ended.

 

[breezer]

it wasn't sarcasm.

you first said about not wanting to spend money (drains) then you said spend money (top soil)

so i did not understand what you want to do, spend money or not

 

[sidecar_jon]

to really do it properly i think it might be a good idea to do both!... tool hire shop for a mini digger... and trench it and maybe put gravel drains in then raise top of lawn to level it out to non flooding level.... (bear in mind the idea is to stop the water pooling so trench it where the water comes from rather than where its going too)... either way its quite a lot of work.

 

[Hazelb]

You haven't said what sort of gareden you have.

Is the area you have problems with lawn or border or both.

What sort of soil do you have? ( I would guess heavy clay)

What is the bit of garden like in the summer, does it set rock hard?

Is your house a recently built one ( in the last 20 years or so ).

The treatment that is best for your garden depends on your answers.

 

[skybluescooby]

You haven't said what sort of gareden you have.

Is the area you have problems with lawn or border or both.

What sort of soil do you have? ( I would guess heavy clay)

What is the bit of garden like in the summer, does it set rock hard?

Is your house a recently built one ( in the last 20 years or so ).

The treatment that is best for your garden depends on your answers.

aah help at last.
Its a square garden, approx 30ft by 30ft
Problems with lawn, borders on right of picture flood drastically,
Put a new fence up a few months ago and there appears to be 12" of soil then clay then in certain areas very wet granular dolomite type clay, this was found about 2ft down
Yep, Summer it sets rock hard and cracks appear
Built 1996
I kinda guess there is a vast difference in cost when it comes to laying pipes etc than it is to throw on some topsoil and fill the troughs and rectify the "run off" I have sent a picture to be posted upon approval

 

[economiser]

I suffered this problem for years. In the end I had to dig drain trenches, not very deep, installed perforated plastic drain pipe in pea shingle with tip soil over falling to a brick lined, with holes, sump at the low point. Most of the time the water finds its own way out but when very wet I use a submersible pump to pump into nearby ditch but you could pump to drain if you have one (we have a septic tank and this would not be advisable for us). It works a like a dream.

 

[DIYnot]

skybluescooby's picture:

Picture

 

[Hazelb]

Ok here's my attempt at an answer! ( sorry its a bit long)

I suspect the problem is aggrivated by a few things.

1) The way builders build houses!:

Your house looks like it is built as part of an estate/cul-de-sac. Builders will usually bulldose the top 2 to 3 feet of topsoil to the side of the site. The as they build with dumper trucks/ JCB's/ Fork lifts. They will happily drive back and forward over the subsoil ( in your case heavy clay ), and compact into impervious layer.

Then when the houses are finished, they will push the top soil back in to the gardens, leaving the impervious clay layer a foot or two down. This means plants will seem to grow happily, the garden can cope with light rain, but heavy rain will just pool on top of the impervious clay layer. In really bad cases almost going stagnant.

2) drainage ( house not the garden)!

Where does your rainwater go? is it connected to the sewers or does it go to a soak-away? The first option is better for you garden, but worse for the environment. Does the patio drain on to the garden? I would sugest making alternative arangements !


How to fix it!

It depends on how bad the compacted layer of clay is, that needs to be broken up.
The soil structure of the top soil will need improving as well.
Land drains may not be the answer as where will the water drain to?

I would sugest the following:

About 1/2 way along the border dig out a trench, from the fence through the border and into part of the lawn. Lift out the top soil and see what the sub soil layer is like ( When digging it is best not to mix the topsoil and subsoil). you will need to brake up the subsoil layer.
Some people recommend digging pea-shingle or gravel into this layer to 'open the structure up'.

The top soil can be improved by adding organic mater ( well rotted farmyard/horse manure. This can be dug in to the top layers in the spring, and in later years just spread on the surface in the spring and the worms will take it down.

If you do a search on 'double digging' It will show you how to dig along and do both at the same time, keeping subsoil and top soils seaperate.

It's hard work, If it is a subsoil problem the lawn will need doing as well!

DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS IN WET WEATHER - that is one way to realy RUIN soil structure.

I can recomend some nice easy maintenance shrubs for clay soil if you want some in that border?

 

[skybluescooby]

Cheers for the reply, very detailed

To put a different perspective on finding a solution, i intend to remove all the grass this year and rotovate the whole lot, riends brother is a farmer with a whacking great rotovator,
So this will give me the blank canvas in which i need to reshape the garden, A conservatory and outdoor building are two items to be introduced to the garden this year and i was just thinking about levelling off the lawn or creating a new angle of fall, say towards the rear of the garden towards the leylandi as i guess they never get thirsty.
The flooding is generally worse towards the angle of the picture and right along the border, this was only dug to help drain away recent rain, there was about a spade n half worth of soil before it hit the clay, thing is i only noticed the other day that the neighbour's patio runs off towards our garden. However when the conservatory is built this problem will dissapear as the path will be higher, so this leads me onto the problem, once rotovated i intend to import topsoil and general lawn drainage materials so would it be best to create my own run off towards the trees ?
Regards

 

[Hazelb]

If the problem is compacted subsoil the rotovating may not go deep enough,as you need to get the compacted layer broken up.

If you are intending a runoff from the patio onto the garden, make sure you dig in lots of gravel!

Or you may get a pond instead

 

[breezer]

so drains it is then?

 

[economiser]

I would be interested in your recommendations for shrubs on clay soil. Particularly evergreens

 

[skybluescooby]

so drains it is then?

Breezer, Why are you so rude and arrogant, I have spent a few minutes looking at your previous posts and you don't seem to be of much help to others, People like myself come on this site for valuable knowledge in the diy "trade" and to be told, "try ebay", "drains it is then", "try Maplins" aint much help is it. Your posts are generally short and non descriptive.
I can envisage you as some grumpy shop keeper with the brown overalls on and when someone calls into your shop for something you look at them over the top of your glasses in a , how dare you interrupt my newspaper time, kind of way and simply say, nahhhh try ebay,
The advice and time i have received from HazelB has helped me no end, such detail and indepth advice goes a long way to solving problems and enlightening the grey matter.
Your watergardens link tells me a lot about yourself.
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