Landscaping - Solving drainage problems

[diyonly]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for a great forum. After browsing for a while, I've decided to join in the hope someone can give me some advice.

I'm currently landscaping the whole garden, so I have a lot of questions, however for now my question is regarding drainage.

Basically my neighbour has a large garage which has roof guttering, with 2 downpipes. One of the downpipes is on our side. I don't have an issue with keeping it that way because our garage also is setup this way, but my problem is that when it's raining. all the rainwater is simply ending up on the lawn. This causes lots of issues, such as large puddles, mud hardly drying out and also not forgetting slugs and mushroom fungus. A bit like this:

The other issue is that due to the length of garden and the fact there is no guttering for around 70 metres, I can't simply direct it towards the ground gully.


My idea is to create some sort of a gravel type drainage, which will allow all the water from the downpipe to land onto the gravel stones and simple soak away into the ground....A bit like this:

What do you think? Would this work? Any other suggestions?

Cheers everybody

 

[Ian H]

That should work as long as your not on clay ground.

 

[diyonly]

Thanks Ian.

How will I know if it's clay ground? All I can see is soil.

Also do I simply dig a 5-8 inch trench and throw gravel in it?

Also by having gravel, will my lawn still be soaked in heavy rain with puddles or would the water quickly dissipate into the ground?

 

[Ian H]

Best to dig a hole 300mm square first, fill it with water and see how long it takes to soak away.

You will see if it's clay underneath when you dig.

 

[diyonly]

That's excellent advice, thanks again.