Garden Flooding

StudWall · 5 Mar 2020

Hi all,

I have a little flooding problem in my garden i hope someone can advise how to fix.

The garden slopes away from the house and has a bit of patio at the top and then lawn down to the bottom, the very bottom of the garden has a small patio which is above grass level.

Because of this the rain flows down to the bottom of the garden and forms an adorable little lake, whilst i am a fan of water features, this one is not so much to my liking.

Is there anything i can do to help the water drain away, i guess my only option is a soakaway???

Notch7 · 5 Mar 2020

if lawn is flooding that might imply the soil has low porosity in which case a soakaway would only act as a storage tank

where does your house rainwater go? -its possible it is a silted up soakaway in the lawn that is causing the issue.

your starting point is to find out the rainwater system on your property and the soil type then decide on a course of action

its possible to do a porosity test which will tell you how effective a soakaway will be

StudWall · 5 Mar 2020

Thanks for the quick reply.

The house rainwater goes into the mains surface water drainage, no issues with that.

I am sure you are right about porosity, we are on fairly heavy clay so the water just collects and puddles. When the rain stops it does drain away fairly quickly, but right now the bottom half of the garden is an inch underwater

Notch7 · 5 Mar 2020

nerox said:
Thanks for the quick reply.

The house rainwater goes into the mains surface water drainage, no issues with that.

I am sure you are right about porosity, we are on fairly heavy clay so the water just collects and puddles. When the rain stops it does drain away fairly quickly, but right now the bottom half of the garden is an inch underwater

Sadly there is no solution -you could put in a soakaway, but if the subsoil is not porous, the soakaway will fill up like a tank.
The only other option is to put in a drain run to the mains surface water drainage -but thats a lot of work and may not get building control approval.

cwhaley · 5 Mar 2020

Our soil contains a lot of clay too (which the plants love!) and as a result of all this rain we've had, the lawn seems to be permanently 'boggy'. My FIL (6 miles down the road but 300ft higher) has mowed his lawn 5 times this year already!

You could have it aerated with a hollow tine aerator (mechanical) which helps to alleviate some of the compaction, you could also consider raising the lawn to accommodate more water (potentially cheaper depending on lawn size) but your best and most effective bet is to install a French drain system. I haven't done it yet but a neighbour has done and the difference is incredible.

HawkEye244 · 8 Mar 2020

Depending on the size of your back garden you could consider planting a dwarf root stock apple, pear or plum. These are basically mini trees that never grow beyond a certain size so you don't have to worry about them over-growing the space. The ground will benefit from the constant suction action from the roots and you will get fruit in summer. Just an idea

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Garden Flooding

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