This thread spiraled more into a drainage thread instead of landscape, which is alright with me. I really like the my latest design (listed below).. yeah it has pathways and may not be for everyone... but I like it. I have a few other completed beds with the same pathways and I really like the look. pls8 - The land all kind of slopes towards this "wet area" I have listed below. It rained 3" last week. Today just 3 days later and all the water has soaked in. The ground is still squishy in spots, but no standing water. I mowed yesterday... in the "Wet Area" I had marked below, the mower made a mess. In the other areas it didn't. You can stand in this wet area and see the land slightly slope towards it. After I mowed, you could actually see where this wet area was because of the mud streaks. I spent a few hours after I mowed yesterday studying the land and where everything sloped. I cut it short just so I can see exactly where this land slopes and now it looks more clear. Below is an image of what I found. You can see the two wet areas. The one at the top of the image is an empty field that always has standing water. Here are my thoughts after I evaluated it: 1. The bed I have that's almost flat on the left. After I raise & slope this entire bed, it'll not only prevent the neighbors runoff onto my land, but give them some of my run off. 2. When I raise the other beds, It'll just allow the runoff to accumulate faster in the two wet areas. Preferably that brush/field behind my lot that always has standing water and is more like a swamp. 3. I only have a few pathways in this design that water may accumulate, which I don't think it will. If for some reason it does, I don't see why I couldn't just create a few small swales like I mentioned above. Just a small indent maybe an inch deep x a foot wide or something to carry the water away into the wet/wooded area. After I get the 300 yards of dirt out here, I plan on getting prices to have it spread... perhaps I could also get a price on regrading. Just by looking at my current yard, I don't think regrading will solve the problem. It's to large and you would essentially need to create a pond or deep hole at one end to get enough slope. That would equal $$,$$$. By just adding soil and sloping it, I'm just recreating what's already in parts of my yard. My front yard, side yard, and half of my back yard is built up... you can see it slightly arch in the center and slope off to lower points where it gets a little soggy. My field is "Flat", it does slope some, but it doesn't have that arch if you know what I'm talking about. I do have a few places in my field that slightly arch and it's as dry as can be. I think building my beds higher than the surrounding soil, slope them away from my property, will solve my problem without the need to regrade. This post was...

mocharoman, You dont say where you live. Most states observe the Civil Law of Drainage. Since there is no easement for the water as it travels across the lots in your neighborhood, it is this law that should govern the actions of the owners. The philosophy of this body of law is to keep the status qou at the point that water flows across property boundaries. A landowner may change how water flows across his own property in any way he desires. But he may not change the location at which it exits his property nor the character of that flow. A lower landowner is obligated to receive the natural flow of water from the higher property and may not act to block it. There is nothing in the law that precludes multiple property owners from banding together for an agreement to change the drainage across their combined properties. Once in place, the new arrangement becomes what each owner, and all who purchase from them, must honor. A violation of the Civil law of Drainage is a civil tort. An aggrieved party may sue for damages and/or an injunction to have the drainage change reversed to the condition before the change. The right to sue extends to all affected downstream or upstream owners, not just the adjacent owner. One who changes drainage without regard to their neighbors can learn a very expense lesson. But all states have a statute of limitation and once the time has run without legal action, any drainage change made becomes the natural and normal flow that owners must honor. Developers of land often start with a large tract. They often change the drainage across the land to suit their purpose. They may make as many changes as they want because they own all the land. That is, until there is a sale of part of the property. At that instant in time a new boundary is created and the drainage condition as it crosses that boundary is fixed as the status quo that both the new owner and the developer must honor. Now letÂs look at that 4 inch pipe that runs from your lot across the neighbor to the retention pond. Was it installed when both lots had a single owner or under an agreement between owners of the two lots? If this is the case then the flow of water through the pipe at the property line is the status quo that you may insist be maintained. Note that your neighbor may dig up the pipe or reroute the water in an open ditch or change the drainage across their property at will. What that neighbor may not do is block that pipe from carrying the flow at the property line. Another question that a court might consider is whether the pipe represents a drainage facility. Suppose there is a continuous line of pipe from house gutter across an adjoining property without any other entry of surface water to the system. The court might well interpret the pipe to be a fixture of the house rather than a drainage facility. In which case the pipe is merely an illegal encroachment on the adjoining property and is subject to removal. You say you just finished a regrading of your own lot. You might want to make an assessment of whether you violated the Civil Law of Drainage in doing that. If so, you could be better off to keep you mouth shut.

hi newbie ... you plant shrubs just like trees ... in clay or dampness.. you plant high.. regardless of the plants mature ability to cope ... planting high.. allows the plant.. to put its roots where it needs too.. so as to cope with excess water.. with a new planting.. i would be worried that i was creating a caldron ... especially in clay soil.. that would trap and retain water.. causing the roots to rot ... by planting half the root mass in the ground.. and half above.. and creating a mound with good draining soil above .. we create a situation.. where the plant can get 'established' ... getting over the stresses of planting.. before it has to worry about the deluge ... so whether or not.. a fully est'd plant can handle the water.. is not really as important as PROPER PLANTING of a babe ... make any sense??? ken

Abiotlegesse, As the OP who lived through this the last couple of years, my first thought to your post was RUN. For us, our problem only got worse until serious and expensive interventions happened. "Grading" and "scraping" our back and front side yard (done by the builder as a solution to my complaint) DIDN'T work. The developer did nothing to correct our problem - there was a lot of talk, but nothing was actually done by him. The builder tried the scraping and grading. But, by the time we got another heavy rain that proved it didn't work, our one year builder warranty was expired. However, I will say that French drains (multiple) did finally work for us. Late last summer, our neighbor to the west of us put in French drains that wrapped all the way around his back yard and emptied into his and my front yard, with our permission (he did this because his backyard was starting to flood so badly that it was coming into his house). Since a good deal of our water flows downhill from his house (and the houses west of him) his French drains helped the flooding on the west side of our backyard a bit. But, his French drains could't help the water that also was flowing from the houses behind us (south of us) into our backyard. Late this spring, my husband installed French drains along the middle and east side of our back fence line and down the east side of our backyard up to the front yard all the way to street. He also hooked into our western neighbor's French drain that was emptying into the west side of our front yard and he extended that out to empty into the street as well. Since then, we've had two very heavy (days long) stints of rain and I'm happy to say that our flooding problem is gone. We still have some minor puddling issues on the west side of our yard behind our shed (where we didn't install a French drain). But, we no longer have a river flowing through our backyard. And, even better, we no longer have the resulting lake sitting our backyard that then stays for several days to weeks before finally evaporating. I can't say whether or not they would be able to bring legal action against you if you backed out at this time. However, I will say that if you move forward with buying the house, before closing, you should try very hard to get the drainage issue documented in writing, detailing what the developer and/or builder has done so far to correct the issue, the fact that the issue is still not completely corrected, and that the developer and/or the builder will take further actions to ensure the issue is corrected to your satisfaction. Buying the house without some sort of written agreement about the specific existing issue will only make it that much harder for you to get them to correct later. For me, it was clear that we would need to take our developer to court if we wanted him to pay to correct our drainage issues. After a lot of debate and thought, we decided to spend our money on just fixing the problem ourselves versus legal fees that might get the developer to pay to fix our problem. We've certainly learned quite a bit about home buying the hard way with this experience (and it wasn't our first house buying experience). On the bright side, since we don't intend to retire here, we can use what we've learned to hopefully make the next buying experience much better.