I would be floored too. Have you considered finding your own fill dirt? Sometimes I see it for free on craigslist. You could also call around pool builders and see if they know of a big pile of dirt they want gone. That is a big hole you have. I found this old thread you may be interested in. http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1613131/truckload-of-topsoil

Thank you for the feedback. In the future we might plant ground cover on the hill, but there isn't enough time at present to establish any if we're laying down soil elsewhere. One good rain would wash all the fresh soil away. I'm not sure how well it comes across in those lower photos, but the landscaper did a nice job transitioning that side so it's not as steep as it seems, but will be a pain to mow nonetheless. I did check Craigslist for soil and also reached out on FB to friends and family. On CL people are mostly unloading small amounts of soil... a few bags here and there. I know some people who have unscreened fill, but the majority of the soil nearest the house should be screened so we're not taking out windows with torpedo rocks. We lost a sliding patio door last week because of a rogue rock my husband hit while weed eating :( After he spoke to the landscaper, we're going to cover as much as we can within our budget and thin out the soil on the sides. DH can work on those areas himself here and there and we can probably get away with fill there since there aren't many windows on the sides of the house (garage on one side).

One of the houses in our development who has a similar landscaping issue had a nice solution. I snapped a photo while we were taking a walk a few weeks ago. I can see us trying this down the road (without the bushes) and installing some steps in the bank with rails on either side. We want to eventually put a covered patio directly behind the house in that space that is carved out, where our deck previously was.

Question: what is wrong with the soil already there?

It's mostly clay and rock. A LOT of rock.

Can you get free mulch from the power lines clearing people? You can just spread it very thickly and it decays quickly building up you soil.

Hmm... I can't say the idea occurred to us. I don't know how long that stuff takes to break down, but I'd very much like to have a lawn sooner rather than later. I have an 8 month old who's learning to walk and would love for him to have a yard to play in. With a little one at home my boxer isn't getting as many runs in either, so she is also patiently waiting for a yard haha. I also think we'd have a lot of erosion issues if we don't plant something immediately. The landscaper gave us some contractor's seed to lay down for now to help with erosion- that's what you see in the bottom pics. In SE PA we've been getting HAMMERED with rain for the last month. It's starting to feel like we live in a rain forrest :/

That opening is huge. You only need screened soil for the top layer.

Those trees you are removing are the most beautiful trees I have ever seen.

Buying in soil sounds ridiculous to me. Sorry. It's as though the job is being made so very difficult and expensive.

Incidently, some of the photos that I see of people's houses on this site are amazing, not so much for their lovely houses but for the setting. You cannot buy that sort of setting once it's gone. I realise that you are only getting rid of some trees, not all the trees, but it still seems a shame.

Don't have tips for you to save money, but have some for you to spend more! When you get around to making a patio and steps to the upper level, consider making a WIDE set of steps ... about the same width as the patio length.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions! The house and landscaping is very much a work in progress. The trees are the most appealing part, I agree!! Much of what we cleared us brush. We took down some very large trees, but most of them were a very big threat to our home and safety. Large trees with lots of dead limbs hanging directly over the house. The year we bought the house a large branch fell through our roof and last summer another fell on my husband's work truck. So some of the removal was very much for safety reasons. We got hit pretty good by Sandy a couple years ago and that created a lot of widow makers. i had a moment to take a few pictures today of the space. The stuff on the sides of the house was already mostly clear- just brush.

I would have liked to have a lot more progress on the exterior by now but we had to put a new roof on the first year (with 5 new skylights), connect to public water (150 ft trench in the front yard!), new garage doors, etc etc.... You could say we live in the money pit lol. I'm excited about the progress though. It's a lot of work but very rewarding.

It looks like the ground slopes to the back of the house and down from the front? If so, have you considered a large french drain at the back of your back yard...divert the flow around the house to the front yard and downhill?

Adding 4-6 inches of clean top soil the the back yard would allow you to sod it. I completely landscaped my back yard, hand leveled/spread top soil, raked endlessly smooth and sodded it. One pallet of sod (~400 sq.ft.) was $85 (I got 3) plus delivery ($100). The sod is 2 years old before they harvest it, so it's got some good roots.
Here's what it looks like now:

Landscaping Clay · More Info

Before.

Landscaping Clay · More Info

Smoothed...forever.

Alley view-backyard-prep remainder(house garage-walkway)

Well, part of the design was supposed to help drainage. We still are getting puddles behind the house though. The landscaper said when he comes to put in the soil, they'll level it so it drains better. It's SUPPOSED to divert the water around the house. Some of that is happening now (better than before the work was done), but not enough. We've taken a lot of photos so he can see exactly where the water is pooling.

One of my other buddies who has done pretty much every kind of outdoor job imaginable (currently does trees) recommended sod at least on the bank. We're going to have to price out our options before committing to anything. I worry that when we lay the fresh topsoil down that a good rain will wash so much away. The landscaper says the hydroseeding will prevent that (my buddy says otherwise). Without any experience myself, we're at the mercy of the landscaper. We've had pretty much nonstop rain for over a month now though so I am very much concerned.

I have level ground (well the backyard slopes about a 1 foot to the alley), but it's all clay. I put in several french drains with yardcloth/gravel/4"drainpipe to carry water toward the alley. My french drain (ditch) is about 12" wide and 18" deep.

With the large hill sloping toward your house I would make a MUCH bigger diversion french drain (wider/deeper trench and larger drain pipe) at the back of the yard, and also possibly going uphill from your yard and have a mound sloping to either side of your house/backyard (so water goes around the house/yard).

Farmers in Iowa and Illinois put lots of drainage pipes under their fields around here (so their tractors don't sink to China).

How much does sod cost in your area? With proper prep it could come out like mine did...thick, lush, green,thick, and lush. It's also recommended for gradual slopes.

I'll float the idea by DH and see what he thinks. I think he could probably do it himself, and truthfully, we're not looking to add anymore cost to this project. Originally, the plan was to have the hill beyond the errr, ditch (for back of better term) to slope slightly backwards to prevent water from building up behind the house. And to an extent this is working, but with heavy rains we still have water pooling behind the house in a few spots.

I don't see need to add any "drains" or pipe. Just a need to slope and contour the grade such that the slope is positive and not too flat . It looks like it could be easily achieved. I'm providing the sketch to suggest the general Idea, but it's exaggerated to help explain. In real life, it could be more subtle. The red line would be approximately in line with center of house. It divides where water chooses to run left or to the right side of property. A similar configuration would occur on left side.

Also, rather that run water of the entire back yard toward the patio and then carry it away, you'd want to create similar swales above the cut slope that directs water toward the sides of the yard instead of directly toward the patio. When the patio is built, it's pretty much a certainty that you'd want a retaining wall/curb/step system (of some configuration) to protect soil from washing onto the patio.

Thanks Yardvaark! I think that's exactly what the landscaper has planned. We're still waiting for him to get back to us with a date for soil. Currently, we do have some flow in the direction of your sketch, but only when there's A LOT of water back there... but it is starting to do what it was designed to. I was under the impression that he was also going to slope the (upper) yard back slightly, as a second measure. Maybe he intends to achieve that when the soil is down, but so far the (upper) yard is mostly level at the hill.

This is what I think the original plan was:

But this is how it currently is. Everything in pink has been cleared. There's a huge area off to the left and the right of the house that you can't see here. It's a lot more cleared land than it looks. The very back (where it goes up) hasn't been leveled with the rest of the yard because of very large rocks.

Precisely because it's a large cleared area uphill and slopes directly to the back of your house I would want a well defined (and hidden...french drain) drainage path. If it drizzles for a week or you get 3" of rain in one day, what happens.

My yard was all clay, which I partly removed and sloped to the french drain and covered with 6" topsoil and sod. When the topsoil is saturated, it will drain into the french drain/gravel ditch, which then carries it to a gravel driveway (1 foot deep) and lower alley.

We had 11" of rain last month and my back yard was not soggy (just thick, lush, green grass). Note: my neighbor's sump pump drains into the middle of my back yard.

I used a shovel and wheel barrow for my french drain and had the pile of clay hauled off. I raked and smoothed a long time (it was exhausting work, 3 hours at a time, after work) and I have an area 1/4 your area. Your clay/large rock mix would be very hand difficult, a small backhoe would make short work of a 1' wide x1.5' deep x 60-80' length drainage ditch. Small contractors may cost less than landscapers (if you can do leveling/smoothing/spreading topsoil yourself); if you have a local city compose facility, you can mix and reduce needed topsoil. (topsoil delivered is $115/3 yards to $165/3yards; Rock Island, Il).

I floated the idea of a french drain by DH (I agree with you and think it's probably worth doing even if the pitch is corrected). We have a friend with a small backhoe that would probably be willing to help us out if that's what we decide to do. He dug a 150 foot trench for us in the front yard to lay copper pipe when we connected to public water a couple years ago. However, I think DH is concerned about tampering with anything. If we have issues because of what the landscaper did, we can go back to him and say "hey, fix this." But if we start messing around and have any issues, it's pretty much all on us.

I will say that even though we have water pooling behind the house right now with the heavy rains, the basement has been DRY. That's already an improvement, thank goodness.

I don't get purpose of "french" drain if you have swale which drains. The purpose of the swale is to NOT aim water toward back or your house. A swale can be subtle. It does not need to be a ditch.

Yardvaark, it's all a function of the amount of water over a period of time. A light rain will drain fine via a gentle swale, faster with a concrete lined swale/ditch. A french drain is hidden and simply provides an easier path for a larger volume of water. That large cleared, sloping forest could flow a lot of water towards the house. The Iowa sponge soil would soak it up (until saturated), my clay soaks up about a table spoon per cubic yard so I really needed to provide an easy flow path. My yard is quite small compared to danielle's, but there does seem to be frequent downpours in the mid-west, east coast, and more so better expect it (than be frequently wet).

I also wondered what would happen in the event of a lot of sudden rain. All that water heading down from the forest to the house.

I like the idea of subtle drainage that can make use of rain, but can cope with sudden, extreme rain events.

As I type we are getting soaked. It's been like this since the end of May. I guess it's an el Nino year? I haven't been keeping track of how many days of rain we've had, but I'd say for the last month and a half we get rain 5 out of 7 days :/ It's been awful (and unusual). All this rain after a drought too... I think it's safe to say we're caught up now! That said, the pooling we're getting in the back doesn't seem to be coming from the mountain slope, the water just can't soak into the ground fast enough with these surprise, heavy rains.

Now here's another issue, with all this rain, what's the best way to proceed on soiling? There's no telling when this rain pattern will let up and the last thing we want after spending all that money on soil is for it to all wash away before the grass can germinate and root it down. This is no job for a little silt fence lol. Do we do it section by section instead all at once? I almost wonder if we'd be better off with sod and have the rain work in our favor! That would be a heck of a lot of sod though.

@rhdrico, a gentle swale has vastly more potential capacity than a french drain.

Yardvaark...not in my small yard.

Danielle have you checked out the PennState Plant Science page?

It's http://plantscience.psu.edu/research/centers/turf/extension

All the information you could possibly want.

Do you have a nice side view photo of the backyard as the landscaper left it (after hydroseeding)?

Thanks for the link! @rhdrico

Haven't had the seeding done yet but I will update when we get there (and I'm sure will be posting with many MORE updates when we get to prettying things up out there). DH says next week. All the rain has pushed everything back a bit. Oh well... I've waited 33 years to have a real yard. I guess a couple more weeks won't kill me!

rhdrico ... "not in my small yard" doesn't begin to explain what you mean. For starters, the term "french drain" always needs to be defined because it has two distinctly different meanings. It's either a dead-end hole in the ground, or it's a rock-filled channel drained by a pipe. If it's the dead-end hole, the capacity is finite and will almost always become overwhelmed by some storm. If it's a piped-drain, it's limited by the carrying capacity of the pipe. Usually people do 4" or 6". This is very small relative to a few thousand square feet of yard to be drained. A 4" deep swale (which can be almost imperceptible if blended several feet wide) can carry many more times water than the pipe. And there will never be a hidden clog or silting up. If you say it can't, how do you figure?

Re Yardvaark...from a landscaping source:

• "Swales
  are shallow ditches used to capture and divert rainwater. Unlike French
  drains, they do not contain piping to carry the diverted water. They
  are typically located along the property's boundary following a natural
  grade, as recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
  and rely primarily on existing topography for their required natural
  slope. Swales are commonly vegetated to promote the filtering of water and
  to encourage it to soak slowly back into the ground. According to the EPA,
  swales are impractical in areas that are commonly wet or have poorly
  draining soil, and may erode during peak flows.

• French drains
  are a swifter alternative than swales for diverting excess rainwater and
  are implemented to mitigate or prevent groundwater recharge and standing
  water. They are also appropriate for draining waterlogged soil.
  French drains can be located to provide proper draining where there is
  otherwise inadequate natural slope at the property."

There is much not explained or qualified in those two paragraphs. We would need to know the details of those claims, beginning with definitions, in order to evaluate them. Still doesn't address capacity issue.

[houzz=https://www.houzz.com/magazine/how-to-move-water-through-your-landscape-stsetivw-vs~35829438 w=300]

That's a good article, rhdrico, and with nothing I disagreed with. I'm getting the sense that the french drain you are speaking of (why defining terms is key) is IN ADDITION to a swale, not as an alternative to it. Whereas, its objective is in speeding up water infiltrating the ground. Such a french drain/swale combination increases the swale's capacity. I still would not grasp the purpose of a standalone french drain. I would see an underground collector drain at the house foundation as a separate entity with no capacity to redirect water that is coming from the back yard. The swale is what directs water away from the house while the opportunity to do so exists.

Danielle's flat backyard, mostly clay and rock, with bare hillside above it could have a lot of water to flow if the ground is saturated. My yard is 100% clay with no infiltration; but my water source is 95% rainfall on my lot. I sloped my clay all I could (back of house to alley, 12"x60') and put a 12" deep gravel driveway at the alley. Note: a large double garage occupies 1/2 of my alley perimeter. I put 6" of topsoil (sloped to the french drain/gravel trench) and sod on top. I consider my use of french drains (12"x18" gravel trench with a 4" drain pipe) as a reduced resistance water flow path. A french drain at Danielle's back of the backyard would provide less resistance and greater/additional diverted flow around the house. No zig zag needed for her backyard.

If the area doesn't allow much slope for the swale (mine is 9'wide for
30',right turn and 22'wide for 15', then drainpipes only, 45 degrees
left for 10' and 45 deg left for 10' to the gravel drive (drainage
basin) how can you increase the flow, I don't think a 12" deep swale in
the backyard would look good at all.

Landscaping Clay Backyard · More Info

My house is surrounded by clay and backfill at the basement foundation,
since it was built in 1924, who knows what the backfill was...so my
inside basement waterproofing keeps the block walls drained and water
drained below the basement floor. Of course the ground is sloped at the
foundation and the gutter downspouts are directed 6' away on the level
ground, but I still got seepage to the fill at the foundation walls.
The waterproofing drainpipe alongside the footings provides a no resistance flow
path to the sump pump pit, where it's pumped out, so everything inside
stays dry.

@rhdrico ... I am little less confused by the additional information. For the sake of simplicity and clarity it would be good to forego discussion of underground drainage of a building foundation wall and keep it separate. We should focus just on the overall yard drainage ... keeping storm water away from the house.

When you say, "I don't think a 12" deep swale in the backyard would look good at all." I'm pretty sure my ideas are not getting across. Part of the reason could be that drawing very subtle concepts is not necessarily easy to do in the time allotted, using basic drawing/painting tools. Usually, I must exaggerate a concept and leave it to the viewer to make it more subtle in their mind, or in real life during construction. For myself, I'm not envisioning ANY trench-like looking earthworks, but instead gradual depressions that would neither be treacherous to walk on or jarring to one's sight.

You are still leaving quite a bit of information out of your description of your french drain so there's a good bit we don't know. How does water enter it? You mention a 4' drain pipe but you don't say if it's for water going in or coming out. Is the capacity finite? Let's note that you have a very different situation from the property which is the subject of this thread. Your yard flat, The subject property has substantial grade change. The overall objective is getting water to stay away from the house and living areas. You might not have a place to store excess water but to put it in a hole in the ground. At the subject property, it only need be directed around the house to a lower elevation.

A 4" pipe has a cross section of 12.5 square inches and can carry only as much water as that profile will handle at a given gravity-driven speed. A swale that is the same depth as the pipe, 4" -- in a width of 10' (so as to be subtle) has a profile capacity of 240 square inches .... almost 20 TIMES as much capacity as the 4" pipe! What's more, the flow is endless. As long as there is a lower elevation place for the water to run, the sky can rain for 1,000 days and the swale will still never fill. It will never have a clog that is hidden from view or can't be easily removed.

A french drain, in and of itself, can do nothing more than store water and put that water into the ground ... kind of like a retention pond, but underground. You don't give the third dimension to your french drain, but if one were to compute the capacity, deducting for its rock fill, I think we could see that capacity is significantly less than the overall volume that the french drain occupies. What's more, it's an underground structure that not only takes some doing to construct, but it has an odd knack for being in the way of future above ground activities -- like planting trees and shrubs or installing posts, etc. How large would a french drain that had any meaningful capacity need to be on the subject property? As I see it, the only purpose in having a french drain on the property is to RETAIN water for a longer period of time. If that's the objective, its location would best be at the lower elevations of the yard. It's still going to require earth contours to direct water away from and around the house.

Yardvaark, please read Falon's "How to Move..." and be thinking "clay doesn't absorb water" and "this ground is frozen for 5 months every year". Florida is a very different drainage environment compared to northern locations. Note Falon's comment "Swales move water, but they also slow it down and allow it to percolate back into the ground to improve water quality". Danielle's clay yard doesn't allow much water to percolate back into the ground, she can have a steeper slope when diverting water around the house, far more the me. Early spring in the north is a fun time too, snow melts and runs off...oops the ground is still froze...maybe ice jams in the swale.

"I'm not envisioning ANY trench-like looking earthworks", my french drains are covered with 6" of topsoil and sod; you can't see them.

Final note: I have never seen anything claiming french drains retain water. Rock Island, Illinois got 11 inches of rain this July and my yard drained quite nicely...even with 300 sq.ft. of it not sodded yet. I could walk on the bare topsoil in 3 days! (That is a tremendous amount of rain for us, by the way).

rhdrico, this has nothing to do with Florida vs. any other soil. It is simply about routing water to a place where it will not cause harm. Even if the yard were solid concrete with no water infiltration at all, we cannot aim water toward the house. We must divert it around the house. French drains cannot route any water, they can only store it temporarily. It is only surface grading -- swales, slopes, diversions -- that will route water. (BTW, I was born and grew up in northern Illinois so am familiar with the climate (winter .... blech!), soils and general conditions.) In all of your comments, I can't see that you address ROUTING of stormwater. You discuss only the underground temporary storage container (french drain.) How will the water get to it? .... only by surface grading .... swales, slopes, diversion!

You fail to explain how water LEAVES the french drain. Does it seep into the surrounding soil? Or does it leave through a pipe to a lower elevation?

Danielle,

You are on a mountain, so you are fine. It looks to me as though the guy who graded your yard knew what he was doing. The water is running around the back of your yard and down the hill you live on.

I wouldn't buy soil and put that down. That is me, but unless your soil is very poor, and it doesn't look like it is, I would just keep seeding it and let as much grass grow in as possible.

It looks wonderful by the way, you and your hubby should be proud of yourselves, it will all be worth it in the end.

My yard looks exactly like yours, only we have a couple more really big trees to have cut down too, we had a terrible ice storm and have to remove the trees. They also graded my yard like yours, remember, when it rains, water will always run down hill, and you live on a hill so you will be fine.

Thank you @butterfly4u. Still waiting :/ The weather is working against us and the guy's projects are backed up.. it is what it is I guess. We do have to put fresh soil down though because of all the rock. There's just too much. It would destroy a mower, plus we've already lost 1 double patio door to ricocheting rocks. DH has started putting insulation board up over the windows when he weedwacks lol.

there's an old rock picker that farmers use, possibly it would save some money on soil, to cultivate what is there a little, then add just a couple inches on top. not sure how expensive that is, but it is an idea. Possibly, you could be a little more selective about where you really need/want grass, or take some of those rocks and make into stone wall or other decorative area.

UPDATE (finally)

Finally have the soil and hydroseed laid down (1 tank). We only had $5k left in our budget so this is what it got us. The entire project from survey to excavation, soil, and hydroseed cost about $9.5K. I really thought we could have gotten a lot more done for that money but maybe I was just naive and obviously landscaping is not something I'm fluent in. All in all, I'm moderately happy. I really wish we could have pushed the landscaping to the edge of the property but there just wasn't enough money. We still have an entire front yard (about 150 feet out) to do and part of me thinks we may have been better off buying a mini excavator! Here are some photos. Please disregard the unsightliness of my house- we're replacing some of the T1-11 and we also just had to replace our sliding patio door (shattered by a kamikaze rock), so it looks pretty poorly right now lol. Everything that is opened up inside the treeline, beyond the bushes is our property, so you can get an idea of the space we didn't get to utilize. I eventually want to fence our entire backyard in (for the dog), and I worry we're going to run into problems because the perimeter hasn't been cleaned down and is very rocky still. I don't know how on earth they'll get post holes in. The giant pipe is our well. We'll be cutting it down eventually (we're connected to public water).

We haven't discussed at length what we're going to do once the grass is established, but we'll either be be putting another deck or more likely a patio behind the house, and cutting wide steps into the bank to go up to the the top of the yard.

It remains to be seen how the drainage issue will go. They flattened out the area in the back a bit so I hope there's enough pitch to get it to flow around with the swail of the yard. We don't have any rain in the forecast for the next week, so we'll see.

The dirt below on the ground is my driveway. I have no idea what we're going to do with this little hill area on the side of the house but DH really wants to utilize it as his "man area." Grill, firepit, etc.

unused property :(

Lots of projects going on at once. We're replacing all the doors, so eventually they will match! Siding still has to be painted too of course, and yes, the back roof of the garage too (the front is done and matches the rest of the house).

I've been trying to take progress shots since we moved into the house at the end of 2011, but I regret that I didn't take many before we started working outside.

Here is the house when we bought it. Nasty, mossy roof, retro bubble skylights, rotting garage doors, n all. Landscape completely untouched in all the 30 years that house stood there.

Some shots of the back before we started messing with it and some after.

Front yard, AFTER we had already cleared out ALL the brush. You couldn't see 15 feet in front of the house when we bought it. I regret that I don't have photos of the before.

150 Foot trench we dug to connect to public water the first year.

Our first Fall here, before the roof was done. Do you here banjos? Lol.

Sooooo much work....

And while I'm sharing... the inside was as bad as the outside...

Before:

After:

The whole project looks immeasurably more pleasant and livable. So much more potential! Since I'm not crazy about mowing, I wouldn't be unhappy about limiting the lawn in the backyard. To have a sea of low groundcover beyond the lawn would suit me just fine.

Thank you :) I agree... much more livable lol. Still very much a work in progress, but we'll get there. We saw the potential when we bought it and have big plans. They're just stifled for the time being while the majority of my paychecks go to childcare and baby expenses.

I didn't see any sprouts in the hydroseed yet but hopefully any day now. No rain forecasted until Friday, which is great. We were so paranoid that we'd get downpours all week and wash away all the soil we just paid for!