PLEASE HELP!! Flooding and drainage problems in back yard.

[justink]

I have a major flooding problem in my back yard. My yard is lower than the surrounding yards and so when it rains it all sits in my yard. As you can see in the pictures, i have a middle spot that is particularly low and becomes a giant pool of water 2-6 inches that’s takes about 2 days to drain depending on the weather. I am wanting to build some type of drainage system to help alleviate this big problem . I think the best bet so far is to construct a French drain and try and move the water out through the gate down the side of the house and out into the edge of lawn beside my front drive way. The distance from the large low spot to the front spans roughly 60ft. The rest of the yard gets fairly wet also. What king of system can I build to help with this problem? Will the ditches look like a tree branches converging on a main drain which then goes out to the front of the house?? I am very handy but I am a little clueless with this problem. I don’t want to break my back digging and then have the drainage not work. Also the yard has poor exposure to sunlight and lots of mossdue to the water. When i fix the drainage problem ,how do i get rid of the moss so i can get some grass growing? Any suggestions and advice would be greatly appreciated. Oh, please note the frustrated wife in the window, Thanks Justin ,Memphis Tn

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26420411@N06/2476366584/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26420411@N06/2475550687/
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[MaineDesigner]

The usual methods are either a herringbone configuration or a series of parallel pipes. Generally the perf-pipe in a fabric sock is laid in trenches lined with porous landscape/geotextile fabric and backfilled with gravel. A layer of the same fabric on top covered with soil.
Caution! This is just a very general comment. Anyone who tells you they can give you good advice on this subject without actually seeing the site is either naive or less-than-truthful. You have to know something about the soil profiles you are working with to do this properly and there often are legal and permitting issues. I know this isn't what you want to hear but I would recommend hiring a civil engineer with demonstrated experience in small scale drainage projects to design it and guide you through any legal hurdles.

If you have considerable shade you aren't going to have much luck getting traditional lawn grasses to grow even if the drainage is fixed.

[bullthistle]

I bet your children have fun after it rains. I second what the previous poster said however those in the business won't want to screw around with such a small problem so you might need to find someone that does this as a sideline that will not charge you up the *ss, possibly a home inspector. I can see from the brick on the house that you have a big problem and it is unfortunate that hindsight can be our greatest asset and I beleive you are on the right path so listen carefully to what someone tells you to figure out if they have a clue. Good luck!

http://propagatingperennials.blogspot.com

[claregirl]

Boy oh boy, I could have written your post. We've lived here three years in July and or back yard floods all the time. My boyfriend has done dozens of things to try to fix the problem. I finally went to our local nursery and had the landscape architect come out to look it over. They are going to be here in two weeks to dig the herringbone configuration that MaineDesigner mentioned. They are also fixing the existing drainage system that was inadequate. We had two trees taken out and we found Scott's fertilizer with moss control.

Hopefully by July we will have a real back lawn and not a pool. Try what we did. It might help.

[pete28]

Maine designer hit the nail on the head with their advice. the other thing you may possibly be able to do is to drain that water to your advantage. Perhaps lay the drainage pipe to empty into a rain barrel or something of that nature? Just throwing out ideas.
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[timbo90]

I have the same problem when it rains long and hard, and on many occasions the flood water ruined our vegetable garden,but what bothers me even more is my neighbor dumps his nasty left over pool water onto the ground and since my yard is a little lower than his all that crap water runs into my yard and garden, which make me very angry and has me looking for someway to stop this,so far I have been thinking about sand bagging my fence that seperates our yards so that I could at least stop the pool water but Ive also thought about building a 2ft. cement wall around the base of my property line and having a dump truck of black dirt dumped and spread to raise my yard to a equal or higher level of that of my neigbors,but i worry would that may cause someone basement to flood?

[rainbowgardener]

timbo - you have a whole different issue with the neighbor and the pool water, which would be highly chlorinated and bad for your garden. You might want to post your own topic, instead of tagging along on this one.

justink - when I clicked on the links it says your pictures have been deleted, so I can't see it. But as noted, if the area is shady, it's not going to be a good lawn area, no matter what you do. So instead of spending a whole ton of money trying to make it something different, why not work with what you have? Make it a rain garden, full of plants that are adapted to flooding conditions and will help soak up excess water. It could be a beautiful little wildflower garden.

Here's a couple articles about rain garden design, but just google that and you will find tons of info out there:

http://www.aces.edu/waterquality/nemo/Fact%20Sheets/rain%20garden,%20mg,%20final.pdf

http://www.appliedeco.com/Marketing/RainGardendesign.pdf

Here's a listing of native plants (for the TN, OH, KY area) that are good for rain gardens:

http://www.bluegrassraingardenalliance.org/?q=node/37

many but not all of the plants listed there are suitable for shady areas. You can look them up if you aren't sure, but here's a list of native plants for shady rain gardens:

http://dnr.wi.gov/runoff/rg/plants/shady/shady.htm
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[The Helpful Gardener]

Doobie may be on to something there...

The first year I was in this house I didn't garden; I drainaged...

It is the most important and overlooked part of landscaping and is often the difference between success and failure. It is in your best interest to get this right before you tackle anything else...

Rainbow's idea is my favorite for dealing with this issue; it turns a problem into a benefit. Perhaps a bit of doobie, a bit of RBG; the two ideas are not mutually exclusive...

HG
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Scott Reil
The Helpful Gardener
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[rainbowgardener]

I just realized that the post from timbo was tacked on to a thread from 2008; I hadn't looked at the date the first time around. Justink never made any other posts than that one, so probably is long gone and not seeing our great advice!

So I hope timbo takes the suggestion and starts a new thread for that question.
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Only when we see that we are part of the totality of the planet, not a superior part with special privileges, can we work effectively to bring about an earth restored to wholeness. Elizabeth Watson, Quaker

[The Helpful Gardener]

Ya never know; he was probably actually notified as I was... thinking "Wow, a blast from the past..."

HG
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Scott Reil
The Helpful Gardener
Visit our Gardening Book Club Forum. Join us as we read The One Straw Revolution, by Masanobu Fukuoka