Waterlogged Garden

[Foolio]

Hello all..

I've got a garden which gets totally waterlogged after heavy rain.

Thinking that a soak away might help I dug a hole. After about 2.5' of top soil I hit solid clay. So far I've dug another 2' and it's still solid clay and bored out a hole another 1.5' and it's STILL solid clay.

I'm guessing that a soak away is now not going to be an option. Can anyone suggest anything else I could try? I'm not keen on installing pumps or anythings due to their being no power at the bottom of the garden and being reluctant to spend money on a house I may not be in 2 years from now.

Cheers

 

[masona]

You may need a drainage system under the lawn

You need to find out where your water level is, dig down to approximately 1m, then check the next day for the water level. I did this and there was 3" of water so I put my soakaway well above the water level line, I'm not keen on the bricks/hardcore as it reduced the volume so used the plastic cage type which collect 100% water, Jewson sell them approixmately £51, 1.000m x .400m x .500m


http://www.pavingexpert.com/drain08.html

After a heavy rain yesterday the new soakaway coped with no overflow from the gulley as the old bricks soakaway couldn't cope with heavy rain

 

[Foolio]

Thanks for the reply Masona.

The entire layer of soil in my garden gets completely waterlogged when it rains, so I don't see how a soak away of this kind could work.

My entire garden has layer of clay (of uknown thickness) about 2' down, so where does the water soak away too?

 

[JamesA]

Are we talking water on the surface?
Have you tried aerating the whole lawn with a fork?

Alan Titchmarsh then suggested brushing sharp sand into the holes, but some people disagree saying sand + clay = concrete lawn.

See 1 hour 45 into:
How To Be A Gardener (Part A)

 

[Foolio]

I'm afraid it's not just the lawn it's the whole garden. As soon as we get any sort of substantial rain the whole garden turns into a bog.

I live at the bottom on the hill and suspect that much of the water is moving down from gardens higher up the hill. So thought that digging a soak away may help. But if the whole garden only consists of 2' of soil on top of clay then I think I'm stuffed.

 

[r896neo]

It sounds very much as if you need some land drains/ french drains as masona suggested. This is especially important when the ground around you or to one side is elevated meaning you get lots of groundwater coming down to you.

A soakwaway in clay will be useless so you would have to think of somewhere else to drain it to. any streams nearby? bad people have been known to connect them into a bottle trap and then on into the nearest rainwater gulley.

 

[masona]

The entire layer of soil in my garden gets completely waterlogged when it rains, so I don't see how a soak away of this kind could work.

My entire garden has layer of clay (of uknown thickness) about 2' down, so where does the water soak away too?

My theory is, to collect water into the storage tank temporary preventing waterlog on top while it will drain away eventfully from the soakaway, these soakaway units, you can add on as many as you like but need to do some tests to find out where the water level is for the best drainage area