Curing a water logged garden - opinions??

Widelats

It is making awful squelching sounds and more or less has puddles in it, so this is what i'm going to do:

Get a auger, and make several holes in the ground about 3 feet apart, all over the water logged area (which is my entire back garden) holes will be around 1.5 to 3 feet deep i can't decide yet. Opinions on depth??

Then fill the holes a quarter of the way with small stones and builders rubble, with a bit of coarse sand mixed in, then fill the rest of the way with just course sand and stones.

I believe these will be able to drain off the water permanently - what opinions do you have on this? Thanks.

gardenroute

Your method sounds like a lot of work, and it may not work. I would try a more traditional method first

http://www.pavingexpert.com/drain08.html

Widelats

gardenroute wrote: »

Your method sounds like a lot of work, and it may not work. I would try a more traditional method first

http://www.pavingexpert.com/drain08.html

That system looks like even more work, and it advises this:

In waterlogged sites, it is often found that the water table is exceptionally high (ie, near the surface). In cases such as this, a soakaway is just not going to work: think about it - to where will all the additional water you're planning to send to the soakway drain? There is nowhere for it to go. The 'soakaway' in this situation is not a soakaway at all; it's a hole full of water, otherwise known as a sump.

splodger_seedswapper

if it was my garden then i would want to know why the ground was so water logged - do you know why it is so wet?

Lotus-eater

All you seem to be doing is making tiny soakaways. If a big one won't work because you think the water table it too high, then your small ones won't work either.
Making a couple of holes to try out though, isn't a very big job, so worth a try.

Normally the way I think it is done, is to find the lowest point, where the water runs too and put a trench through it, filled with gravel, covered with some sort of material to stop soil clogging the graval up, then that would lead the water out of the area ideally, or act as a soakaway otherwise.

Widelats

There is a underlay of clay, i don't know how deep it goes, the ground outside my garden is the same. If the siinkhole plan fails i think i will pave the whole area and have a container garden, or i may well make a bog/swamp garden with a path in it and save my plant growing for the front garden, the front is fine.

Widelats

Lotus-eater wrote: »

All you seem to be doing is making tiny soakaways. If a big one won't work because you think the water table it too high, then your small ones won't work either.
Making a couple of holes to try out though, isn't a very big job, so worth a try.

Normally the way I think it is done, is to find the lowest point, where the water runs too and put a trench through it, filled with gravel, covered with some sort of material to stop soil clogging the graval up, then that would lead the water out of the area ideally, or act as a soakaway otherwise.

I did look at this run way option, its another i can try, thanks.

Dumyat

I have this problem too at the foot of our garden but it would prove impossible to solve due to the land behind me. In the end I took the advice of one landscape gardener who came round, and planted things that like their feet in water. Since I planted a willow the ground is definitely not as wet.

Widelats

Dumyat wrote: »

I have this problem too at the foot of our garden but it would prove impossible to solve due to the land behind me. In the end I took the advice of one landscape gardener who came round, and planted things that like their feet in water. Since I planted a willow the ground is definitely not as wet.

Yes i would try a willow tree, the only things growing there at the minute is buttercups and grass, its a shame i could really do a lot with it, i will try everything i can first before resigning to wet plants.

oldtractor

Why dont you just plant it up with bog/marginal plants?

emiff6

If you've got clay underneath, you could dig out a pond and allow the rest of the garden to drain naturally into it by laying some land drains down to it.

Why is the front OK if the back is waterlogged? What is different about the front garden?