Soggy yard help

14 years ago

I just purchased a home. My back yard sits slightly lower than my neighbors and has some spots that stay soggy and wet. I have a large water oak tree at the back of the yard. I added a load of fill dirt recently and will be planting grass soon. I've considered a drain. However i dont know where to drain it to. if i drain it to the street im not sure how to get it into the street.the edge of the street is sloped up and concreted. Any other ideas on how to makke this yard nice. The previous owners were lazy and i raked 18 (55) gallon bags of leaves the day i moved in. I just dont know what to do to make the yard have grass again and not be all messy all the time. I trimmed the tree up alot to give the yard more sunlight. I would like to make a flower bed around the larg roots of the oak tree. I just want a nice yard with nice grass not mudd all the time. Please help!

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Comments (3)

dchall_san_antonio
14 years ago
Where do your buildings sit relative to the ground? The bottom of your house should/might have a "sill plate" that marks the essential bottom of the house. Below that there will be a slab or other base that is designed to be buried underground. From the sill plate down, the soil should not start until four inches below the bottom of the sill plate. (the sill plate sticks out from the lower base of the house by 3/4 inch or so all around). Then your soil should slant away from all the buildings. If you have that, then your yard is properly designed and your neighbor's is not. It could be he has fallen into the trap of "throwing a little topsoil" on it every year. I've seen build up of 8 inches from this practice. You might talk (nicely) to him about that to get to the root of the problem. It doesn't seem like a quarter inch of soil could hurt anything but over time it can mess with yours and everyone elses drainage. Then you might have to have a professional come in to regrade the yard so you have proper drainage. Where it goes might be up to the local city planning department.

On your tree, when you look at the ground now do you see where the roots flare out away from the trunk? If so then the tree is sitting properly in the soil. If you do not see the root flare and it looks more like a telephone pole sticking out of the ground, then you should dig down to expose the flare of the roots. Trunk bark is different from root bark. Trunk bark can get fungal diseases that root bark cannot. If you bury the trunk, even only one inch, that trunk bark can get a disease that girdles and kills the tree. If you are already to low with the tree, you can dig it out with water pressure from a hose and place a physical base around the tree. That would be to keep the soil from washing back in. Make it about 4 inches or whatever brings you to grade and encircle the tree completely. You don't have to go way far out into the yard with it. You only have to keep the trunk bark from staying soggy. Misplacing a tree in the ground is a very common mistake. You can even buy new trees from the garden center that are planted too deep in their own pots.
goren
14 years ago
If you can drain the area of the backyard to another area--say the front yard, then a swale can be easily built.
A swale is a slight depression that collects and drains water from one area letting it run to the other.
It need only be an inch or two deep. The key tho is the grade has to be uniformly lower as it goes from point A to point B. The grade need only be very slight...less than one inch for the entire length of the draining.

At the point where there is a rise of ground, you'd have to find a way to either go through it or have it collect in a wider absorbing area.

As for the roots of the tree, you can safely put a layer of soil (compost) over it to a depth of less than 3".
More than that, you risk the tree's health from being smothered.
Opening the canopy will help dry up the area.

Neighbors are not allowed to transfer their water problems on a neighbor--even slightly.
You might consider putting a low berm at the fenceline to prevent water draining from a neighboring property.
If that seems too aggressive and you wish to get along with your neighbor on friendly terms, then think a common swale; one that drains hers as well as yours.
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Sit down because I'm jumping right into some science. This is for your husband to help understand why the bridge idea is not going to help you. Normal soil has an open pore structure that allows air and water to pass through it. Inside this structure lives 10s of thousands of species of beneficial microbes which thrive on the open pore structure. These microbes are Mother Nature's invention. As it turns out the species of microbes living in swampy land are different from those living in dryish land (lawns). When you allow standing water to stand for several days, that cuts off the air flow to the beneficial microbes and their populations begin to decrease. If this happens enough, normal grass will thin out and stop growing. They will be replaced by swamp grasses like nutgrass and some others. So it is important to keep the water from pooling on your lawn. Back to the issue... If your community has an ordinance that says homeowners must drain all water from their own property and not allow it to cross over onto a neighbor's land, then all you should have to do is call your city code compliance officers and make them deal with it. If you live in the savage west, then you might have to do it yourself. Talk to your neighbors and ask them to berm up their land at the fence to keep the water on their side. Since they already dug the ditch, they are unlikely to bend to your wishes. So when that doesn't work, berm up your side of the fence and push their water back onto their property (see how they like having standing pools of water!!). Six inches of berm would normally be plenty. Planting a lawn in the spring is not the best idea, but if you really have to you have to. If you can afford sod, then that should be better, but if you were planning to seed, I would not spend a lot on seed for a spring installation. What will happen is all that new grass will find itself competing with crabgrass which also sprouts in the spring. Your grass seed will be less hardy than the crabgrass and will thin out in the summer heat. It is not uncommon to have a full crabgrass lawn by July. It is much better to seed new grass in the fall because crabgrass seed is not sprouting then. It also gives the new grass all winter and spring to develop heat tolerant roots. Now a word on forum etiquette. This is not your thread. The original poster had a problem with soil structure. Your problem is neighborhood drainage. You should have opened a new topic so people who want to help you don't have to read through someone else's problem from last year - which is really not your problem. I also suspect you will need some advice on planting your lawn (spring? or fall - either one). Now is the time to ask, so post a new topic! When you ask about planting a new lawn, please mention specifically where you live. The zone system is not good for helping with lawns, so give a town or zip code. And if you want more help on the neighborhood drainage issue, I would still post a new topic with your new questions. This forum seems to have a lot of opinions about neighbors '-)
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texas_weed
14 years ago
You drain water to the lowest spot of your property. There is no other way around that unless you have pumps to carry it off some where up hill like they do in the city of NOLA.

Point is you build your drainage to the lowest part of your property. Hopefully that is not where your home sits.

Soggy yard help

Comments (3)

dchall_san_antonio

goren

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