Jessaka,

I don't know how big your property is, so it is hard to guess if you can work around the issue of the springs or if the soggy soil fills most of your available planting space. So, I thought I'd tell you how we deal with our springs on our property and make a few suggestions for you.

On our 15 acres, we have three creeks (two of which are seasonal and tend to have water only during the rainy season), a swamp, three separate areas with springs and 4 ponds. Because we have a lot of space and can have a normal yard, mixed borders (trees, shrubs, ground covers, perennials and annuals), a veggie garden, and fruit trees, berries, etc., we LOVE having the wetlands and believe it enhances the property and encourages a diverse mix of wildlife.

In the area of the springs and swamp, we basically leave them alone and let nature plant what she wants to grow there. The exception is that we remove invasive plants like greenbrier and cedar that tries to move into those wetter areas. We have trees on the edge of the swamp and springs that grow nowhere else on the drier parts of the property so we enjoy having that variety.

In the area of the ponds, we try to keep cattails to a minimum on the edges of the ponds, and we enjoy the water-loving grasses, rushes, sedges, etc. that colonize the water's edge. We have added water lilies and pickerel weed to the ponds. The ponds are lovely, catch and hold excess rainfall (which helps slow erosion) and provide water for wildlife.

In the area of the creeks, we also have a diversity of plants not found on upper/drier parts of the property but we do try to keep the invasive plants away from the water's edge because there are some invasive plants that would take over if allowed to.

Our red clay drains slowly, and when you add the springs, creeks, etc. to that equation, raised beds are ESSENTIAL for us to grow our roses and many veggies. With the other trees, shrubs, vines, perennials, etc., I just try to plant the kinds of plants that can and will tolerate wet soil at times AND will tolerate dry soil as well since drought is frequent here.

On your property, you have several options.

For roses and most veggies and many herbs, raised beds or containers will be your best option. If building raised beds does not appeal to you, consider building berms. A berm looks more natural than many raised beds and, when properly sited and planted, will look as though it is just a part of the natural contour of the land.

If it were me and I had the room, I'd build a small to medium lily pond in the area of at least one of the springs and let the spring feed the pond. One bonus of this approach is that the "excess" water fills the pond and becomes both a lovely landscape feature AND a place for the excess water to go. However, you should know that underground springs sometimes dry up or change course (the one that once fed our biggest pond dried up during a drought a few years ago and never "came back"). Thus, you may have springs pop up now and then in a new location too.

With springs on your property, you have to take a couple of precautions. If springs keep the soil near ANY of your buildings excessively wet, there is a likelihood that termites could become a problem at some point so it is VERY important to monitor for them. Also, you need to find out if your property is officially classified as a "wetland" or part of a "wetland" and hope and pray that it is not. Land that is classified as true wetland area is governed by special laws written to protect the wetlands and these laws can make it very difficult for property owners to make any changes to their property that affects the "wetland". Your property probably is NOT classified as wetland, assuming you didn't move into an area that has ever been part of a conservation area, but it is good to be aware that such laws exist. I have know people who made extensive property changes affecting protected wetland areas, and got into a lot of trouble (and had to put the land back the way it originally existed).

On our property, by the way, many fruit trees (native persimmons and plums)and berry-producing plants (dewberries and others) and native grapevines seem to seek out the wetter areas near the springs and the swamp, and the edges of the ponds as well. Therefore, I don't think that soil which is sometimes wet and soggy is too much of an impediment to growing some fruits. Obviously, though, other fruits and berries will not grow in excessively wet soil, especially if the soil is "always" wet.

I don't know where the springs sit in relation to your house and landscape area. If the soil around the house stays too wet all the time, putting in french drains is one option, but those drains can only help so much....they won't be a total cure. Also, on our property, we have cut 'swales' (shallow drainage channels) to channel water away from the house, garage/barn, driveway, and veggie garden. These help carry water away from these areas so it doesn't pool or puddle there for long periods of time. The swales are barely noticeable (look like slight depressions in the land) except when they are carrying water after a heavy rainfall. One modern way to make a swale is to build a dry creekbed, landscaped with natural stone and planted with native and adaptd plants that can handle the occasion rushing water and soggy roots when water is draining down during a rainstorm.

If you have more questions, I hope you'll ask. Springs are, I think, a blessing BUT it depends on how large your property is and how close they are to the house. On a city-sized lot, I probably woud not love having springs the way I do here on rural acreage.

If you have an average sized city-lot deep vertical mulching (underground) is an option to improve drainage, but it is hard to do-it-yourself on a city lot because there are so often so many below-ground hazards (buried phone and cable lines, power lines, gas pipelines, water pipes, sewage lines, etc.)

Dawn

You can grow some awesome elephant ears with the moisture and Oklahoma humidity. My backyard has horrible drainage and I planted EEs back there last year for the first time and my EEs were ENORMOUS. I had several people and family ask what I did to them to get them so big compared to the ones I had in my front yard.

Hi,

I have never cared for elephant ears and most shade plants I don't like. Someone gave me some hostas this year and I must confess I got rid of them. I am more of an herb person that loves artemesia, lamb's ear, cat's whiskers, and some other things that love a lot of sun and not much water. Maybe I will get used to the idea of hostas and elephant ears. Or as I have seen I also like Astilbe and irish moss, forget me nots. Please tell me these things like water. LOL. If not I found a mount in the back of the property that has a creek running behind it or what looks like one but no water, and I can plant it on that hill, but I won't see it that much. Anyway, it runs from north to south, so is 55 feet. And then I just planted some lily of the valley bulbs, but the ground was so soggy where I planted them, and I couldn't think of any higher ground. I don't know if cat's whiskers like water or not, but I am trying to say that I don't like cultivated plants, if that makes since. Maybe it doesn't. For example, I like wild climbing roses over rose bushes. I like honeysuckle but only on the fence. I like, besides the above, cat's whiskers over impatients and hostas. I love russian sage and lavender. And I feel that these things won't make it here. Our front yard is worse in a way, but maybe it will be the redemption of this place. It is mostly sunny, but trees on the south side of the property shade it too much, and they are box elders and on the property line just on the neighbor's side of the fence, so I planted fruit trees along the north side in front where there no shade, and then I bought climbing roses and forgot that the fruit trees will produce shade, but due to lack of any place else we potted the climbing roses along the north fence along the fruit tree line. well, if nothing else the State will have nice roses as they will grow over to an area to find sun. Then I need to cut down some trees on the other side of the fence that the state owns because they are on our fence line, but they are just babies. Along this fence line on the south in front and back of the house there is honeysuckle and wild grapes growing. Very pretty, but I want berries that I can eat and that the birds will love as well. But I think, if the wild berries, honeysuckle and grapes can grow in this wet area, then maybe my roses and grapes and berries can too. I feel like I may have lost more plants due to this rain though, and it is too early to move them to drier land that we don't have anyway. But I cramed everything together just to get it through the winter to be moved in spring. I think I bought plants too soon because I was too anxious to grow things.

Then when I walk back past the lawn in back, I see rivers flowing in every direction, not big rivers, just little bits of water running off the hill, and so it sits on our land even though much of it still runs downhill. So our land is sloped from north to south, which helps. I can see making trenches soon.

I really like the idea of berms. I really don't know if you would consider that we have springs, but when you dig 12 inches and run into water and see water coming into the hole in various areas and then filling up some with water, then I think of that as a spring. I an see that a small pond would work someday. Right now after pulling up all the honeysuckle, ivy, wild berries, and grapes we have nothing but mud in the far back. And it was so beautiful when we bought this place, but I had to pull it up to get the poison ivy out.

I am glad to see that your trees and native grapeviens, etc. soak up the wetter areas.

I showed my husband what you wrote Dawn, and he said that he doesn't think that we have a wet lands. What I think happened is that the city built a bipass behind us, and then a medical building was built on a hill above us, and so water runs down, not from the freeway but from the hill above us, which has not yet had medical buildings built on it but may one day. So now, and we don't know if it did in the past, we water running under our house, and so my husband said that he would build a French drain. Our lot is 1/2 area, but it is 365 by 55 feet. On both sides of this 365 feet is a line of trees from both properites, the south side being property that will one day be medical blgs, and the north is maybe 5 acres of land that belongs to the State and has a pond. All summer the land in the back of our house which is maybe 200 feet long was wet. We put in a long lawn behind the house, but we have 100 feet left which is against the bipass. It is mostly trees, and I spent a lot of time pulling up poison ivy, honeysuckle, wild blackberries and grapes back there, plus we cut down a few baby trees that were closer to the house.

I put some herbs along the north side of the fence line in back that died during the spring rains, so I put a trench around it and tried to built it up some, and then I put more plants there. But as summer came the trees on the north side shaded it. So now directly behind the house I put herbs and have no idea what they will do. We have a trench along the back side of the house which diverts some of water, but with the new rains starting I notice that the lawn is soaked and so has standing water on it. It seems like I need to build a trench along the south fence to divert more water, but then I don't mind it on the fescue, but where I plan to plant veggies and herbs along the south side, I will have to divert more with trenches. My husband said that you call them swells. I don't think I made a large enough swell on the south side where I put some hydragenae and other herbs. I like the idea of dry creeks running through much of the property in back where runoff can flow, and I can see then making a swell where I want the garden, but first we have to cut down some smaller trees that grew up since the last owner got to old to work in the yard and so allowed all of these box elders to grow.

I can say that I love our wet areas too, but I still want some sun and drier areas for dryer plants and veggies. Our front yard for some reason is hard as a rock, and my husband had to break up some slate to plant one of the apple trees. We only hope it grows and produces. But where we planted the roses along the fence, the ground was much softer.

So being in the city, we don't have what is called a wet land but the State decided that the land next door is now a water shed. It does't look any less wet than what we have and at least is down hill from us. I guess I would rather the springs were in the back, way back part of the property.

I think I said that the city came out to look at the pond next door and said it was a spring. It seems to be growing this year, and the water doesn't have any place to go, in other words it is stagnant with no outlet. But it isn't that close to us but is near the road out front.

Not sure how the fruit trees are taking to all of this rain. I had dug a trench around them, and it seems like water is sitting in it, but then I put higher ground near their base. In the summer they do need water as I found out.

Iin back we have no city wires, etc. But past renters have left a lot of garbage that I have been digging out.In front we have identified where the phone, electric and water lines are. Hate to say that the fruit trees are growing along side of them, but the phone, cable, and electric are above the fruit trees. The city will like me one day if my trees make it. I did get smaller trees except for one peach tree that is growing like crazy since planted last spring.

But hey, if elephant ears love a lot of water, then I think I should give in and plant them and try to make friends with them.
\ thanks so much to both of you,

Jessica

Jessaka,

It can be tough living near a watershed, especially if the water is coming off of paved areas, because you will ALWAYS have a big rush of water after a hard rain.

I think that you probably just need to experiment, as you have been, to find the drier zones on your land, and plant your "pickiest" plants there. There are lots of herbs that like water (mints, for example) but they tend to be invasive. Over time, you can build berms and also cut swales and build dry creek beds to channel the flow of the water.

Make a list of the native plants you can identify and then research them and see what you can learn from them. For example, there are some plants that ONLY grow in wet soil. So, if you identify those, you know they are in a spot that probably always stays wet. You can learn a lot about your land just by what pops up naturally.

It is going to be a challenging landscape to develop, but I bet it will not be dull!

Good luck,

Dawn

I think it just takes awhile to learn about your property. When we first moved here we discovered we needed to add a larger septic tank and change from normal lateral lines to something that would handle the situation a little better. We dug down in several locations in our yard and water soon filled the holes. I had never seen that happen before so didn't know what to think. The neighbor behind us was having some septic problems also and was trying to blame us for his. He was a bit confused when I told him our system was on the opposite side of our house from his property. The next month he got a huge water bill. Seems he had a water leak just underground at his back door. He was flooding the entire area.

When the backhoe broke out the old septic tank to place a new larger one, we learned that about 3 1/2 feet down we hit solid limestone. We had one backhoe breaking rock and another lifting it out. By the time we finished paying that bill, we had a fine septic system with an attached house.

We are about a block from the lake and sit on a ridge of solid limestone. When it rains hard it satuates the ground quickly but usually finds its way to the lake within 24 hours or so. Our neighborhood is on city water, but many of us have a well somewhere on our property. The water table is so high, if you remove the well cap and look down you can see the water a few feet down almost all year.

We get a fair amount of rain (a little too much in the spring) and our entire neighborhood could stand "some trenching and berming" to help with the water after heavy rains, but at least we can garden. It is a lot different than gardening near Ardmore where I lived before.

I took out the trash this AM and the garbage can was covered with ice. I came in the house and planted my tomato seeds. Gardeners are optimists, aren't we????

Thanks for your posts. Well, by the time your tomato seeds spout and grow, it could be spring. Last time I tried to plant seeds here I had them on a bench under an eave, and the rain washed them all out, and if not that the dog took care to grab the trays to play with. Now we have a new puppy that pulls up newly planted plants, and I haven't seen him do it, just seen the results.

It will take time to get used to this land. Dawn we have a nursery nearby that has native plants. I think I need to call them and go visit. I would love to have some native plants here, especially those that like water. I think the Medical bldgs have curbs, so the water runs off into the road, and then it meets our house and makes a turn into our front lawn, so I called the city yesterday. I fear that our fruit trees will drown if they don't divert it. My husband doesn't think that water is coming off the bypass, but I haven't gone to look.

I love mint, and I bought a pot of it, but I have feared planting it for that reason. I had to deal with it years ago in another place that I lived. Tansy was another invasive plant that I grew there and changed my mind about. I will do a search on the Internet like you suggested. Thanks.

Soonergrandmom, Hey...you can send some of that water down here to those of us gardening closer to Ardmore!
(Because you just know that no matter how much rain falls here in the spring, we never have enough in the summer!)

Jessaka,

Native plants are wonderful and one reason why is that many of them have adapted to periods of both very wet and very dry soil. I hope you'll keep us posted on your progress.

Dawn

thanks to all. This certainly is a challenge. I hope it is warm enough for me to get out today and start building trenches. It seems some of our backyard stayed wet all summer, but the new lawn had to be watered. And we don't have a hose to reach way out back. We have one hose bib on the house with hoses attached in two different directions. So this means buying another hose just in case it is needed.

Our neighbor has a septic tank, but my husband said it was too far away to cause problems. I am not so sure, water runs downhill.

Ardmore sure is a pretty place. I have a relative there that I visited once, but we lost contact.

Jessaka,

Good luck with the trenching. I hope you get to work outside today.

I am actually about 30 miles south of Ardmore, so far south in Love County that I am surrounded on three sides by Texas and the Red River. Soonergrandmom once lived in Ardmore, though, so she knows exactly the challenges of gardening in our hard red clay and low summer rainfall!

I don't know how far your neighbor's septic field is, but I agree with DH that it "probably" is not the problem. That's assuming it isn't clogged or otherwise malfunctioning.

Dawn