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Gardening in the UK

Drainage problems

12 years ago

Hi I recently purchased a new build house on 1/2 acre of land. Before I purchased the house I knew the land was damp and would need drained however recently I noticed something strange, I had to walk across the grass to the back corner of the garden to retrieve a bucket that had been blown there by the wind, so I expected the worse however when I started walking towards the corner it was damp at the beginnning and then became dry and around the corner the grass has turned yellow from a lack of water, I assume, and now I am wondering if the issue is drainage? There is a hill behind the house and we get the water that runs off it into the garden and we have rushes growing in the garden. The land we have is leveled so Im wondering if the problem is likely to be drainage or is it possibly down to the ground being level and the good top soil being removed?

Cheers in advance for any help anyone can offer

Keith

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Comments (4)

vetivert8
12 years ago
Do you know what use the land was put to before it was converted for housing?

You might have come upon 'buried treasure' such as a chunk of concrete formerly used as foundations. An old driveway lightly covered by the developer. A dead vehicle or so. A sump filled with innumerable rocks and brickbats.

I'm not trying to be gloomy: I've encountered every one of those in various gardens.

An old mining site?

You might want to use your precious damp spot at the foot of the hill as a rain garden or ephemeral wetland. If you're in a drought zone it's a feature worth conserving, IMO.
kgthomas
Original Author
11 years ago
Hi in follow up to this, I'm sorry firstly for not getting back sooner. The lad has been used for sheep grazing previously, and as far as I am aware there was also a small house on the land. My next store neighbour has had to drain his garden also and I have found out that there is an underground stream which runs across the road at the bottom of my garden. I had also been talking to the farmer who uses the land behind my house for sheep farming and had mentioned about having to drain the garden and he said he was very surprised as he had watched the builder and that the builder had put quite a few lorry fills of gravel into the site to help with the drainage and that there is a drain running around the edge of my garden. I thought nothing of this until at the weekend I was planting a blackberry bush and dug down about 6-8" and found that below this the garden is gravel, I used a fork to test other parts of the garden and it seems that I only have about 6-8" of soil and then gravel below this, I would have thought that the gravel would have allowed for good drainage of the garden? Anyone have any suggestions as to where to go from here?

Cheers Keith
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If the basic grading around your how wasn't done correctly at the build or over the years has settled badly... the best option would be to get it graded again.... but this is also the most costly and destructive to any existing landscaping you have in place. Since no one else has jumped in… here’s my take. I am not a pro… so take that into consideration. But if I had a similar problem.. This is what I might do. Adding porous soil on top won’t help. This would include sand, many “topsoils” you can buy at big box stores, or most likely any “dirt” you can buy at a big box store. Many times these aremade from organic materials which will break down over time and you will end up in the same spot. They typically don’t have much mineral content which won’t degrade. Assuming you have clay soil… you would want to add more clay soil to match the clay soil below your top soil. The dense clay is what will direct your water in any directiong. So you could scrape back the decent top soil you have until you get to the subsoil and then add the new clay soil….. Increasing the slope. Then pull the decent top soil back. You could find a source for “clean fill dirt” or just find some cruddy clean dirt from construction site to get the “clay” that you need. Or you can get it delivered. It’s a lot of work. Another option would be to add a french drain of some sort. There’s many youtube videos on this process. It’s a lot of work too! You have any pictures to give a better idea of your issue?
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Even with a French drain installed, you don't want to create a trench. All that will do is create an elongated "bathtub" full of moisture retentive soil in the poorly draining clay. The drain just won't work fast enough or efficiently enough to move excess groundwater away before it saturates the improved soil you used as fill. The way to work with a poorly draining, heavy clay soil is to plant high.....a raised bed is exactly what you need!! It is the simplest, easiest and least expensive solution. I am not sure why you think this would not be appropriate for growing raspberries......many gardeners grow them in raised beds. They can tolerate anything except for poor drainage, which I guarantee is what you will get with digging a trench in clay and filling with a better soil. If you have further questions, suggest you post this in the Soils forum. This is not a Landscape Design question and the Soils forum participants are well-versed in all manner of soil problem issues and solutions
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Without seeing it, I can't really offer specific recommendations. However, masonry block foundations are definitely prone to water wicking into them. If it were my house, and again - not seeing your situation, I would figure on digging down to the house footer, doing a waterproof membrane on the wall, installing a drain tile along the house footer, backfilling with gravel, and then regrading to move water away from the back of the house as much as possible. I'm not really sure what a drain tile at 3-4 ft down would accomplish if the floor is below that.
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stevenNEVETS
11 years ago
Hi kgthomas,if it was a builder tipping gravel it could have been contaminated with everything a builder uses, (cement) may have settled at the bottom or anything else?
You could try taking a ph sample of the gravel and then dig down past it and take a soil sample with a auger or corer?
daituom
11 years ago
If the builder used gravel rather than scalpings for the drainage then you are going to have problems. I have a client with the same problem. On digging down I found the gravel had silted up and compacted,thus having the opposite effect of what was required. The subsoil below the chippings is dry but the topsoil above the chippings is sodden. What we are going to have to do is remove the gravel and put in proper land drains.

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