[iandromiskin]

Hi. Does anyone have any advice on what is the best way to drain a lawn ? Basically my lawn area was built up to make it level with the house by the previous owner, but the end result is that the soil has compacted down so much that the water just sits on top after any rainfall and turns mushy .

I was going to dig trenches about 6inches wide to 8 or more inches deep and fill with gravel leading to a sump in the corner of the garden dug as deep as I can go to natural gravel in order to drain the garden before I put in gravel beds and raised planting areas. But I was just wondering if anyone else has had to go this far and if they had any words of wisdom ????

[verge]

I installed a few of those drainage trenches over the years for a few customers. They are very effective as long as water in the soil has the ability to reach them from the sides as well as from above. If the soil is a really sticky clay then they will only drain just above them.
Have you seen this thread iandromiskin Advice on a wet lawn.
Lots of good links and information in it.
_________________
Q. What is the best soil for growing plants?
A. Your soil.

[iandromiskin]

Thanks Verge.

Certainly not alone I see. My problem if I elaborate is that originally the garden was sloped and the previous owner sloved the probelm by importing topsoil into the rear garden to level it. What I think happened is that over the years this topsoil depth, about 1 - 1.5 foot in places, simply got compacted to such an extent that the water can not get through fast enough. I did dig a small test hole and it appeared to be mostly coarse sand below the topsoil at about 0.25m. Also at the back of our house the concrete naturally has a slight slope to it so needless to say the rain runs off and forms a lovely large puddle at the edge. Overall though the grass is very mushy.

I know what you mean re water only accessing drains from above and not from the side. I have a plan to minimise the amount of lawn I have by about half and landscaping the remainder with gravel and raised beds, out of design only. I was inteding to dig drainage channels parallel to each other at about 1.0m distances (east - west). If I also run some perpendicular to these (north - south) also would that help ? Ie a sort of cris cross pattern. Also would I need to put in drainge pipe or would gravel be sufficient ?

(I must take some photos of the garden to show you its size. I think I have a photo or two of the wet area following a recent downpour. Just have to figure out how to post them now)

[iandromiskin]

These are two photos of the worst part of the back garden which as you can see floods considerably after rain. The rest of the lawn is mostly soggy after rain. That concrete area to the rear of the house needless to say sloping towards the garden, which doesn't help, so lots of drainage required there !!!





(Sorry about the messy garden to the rear . Its the dog (honestly))