drainage ideas for paved garden

londonTiger

Hi

I have a garden which is almost wholly paved. Garden is quite big, maybe 20 meters long and 5 meters wide.

There is a vegetable patch in the garden about 2.5m by 8 meters.

There are a few problems

1) garden has not been paved my a professional, it's got diips around various places which causes the water to puddle and it does not drain into the vegetable patch. Ideally there should have been a sligt gradient which diverts the water into the Earth.

2) The paving is dirty as heck, I have a good pressure washer with patio attachment which can clean the paving by since there is no where for the water to drain it's fruitless because the dirt just turns to mud and collects in the dips and then respreads back all over the garden.


I want to know what would be the best solution for this? Is there a cheap DIY-able solution where I can dig into the ground and place a pouous 30L cistern or something which is connected to a drain which will allow the rainwater to collect in it and then slowly disperse into the soil?

The rear of the garden is a tall brich building and there is no realistic way to connect a proper waste water drain.

londonTiger

is this a sensible solution?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6r4ZSbTQ8U

Mojisola

londonTiger wrote: »

1) garden has not been paved my a professional, it's got diips around various places which causes the water to puddle and it does not drain into the vegetable patch. Ideally there should have been a sligt gradient which diverts the water into the Earth.

I want to know what would be the best solution for this? Is there a cheap DIY-able solution where I can dig into the ground and place a pouous 30L cistern or something which is connected to a drain which will allow the rainwater to collect in it and then slowly disperse into the soil?

If the water doesn't run off the slabs, there's no point putting in a drainage system.

The only solution is to repave with a gradient.

BykerSands

londonTiger wrote: »

is this a sensible solution?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6r4ZSbTQ8U

What, moving to North Carolina or getting Chuck in?

londonTiger

Mojisola wrote: »

If the water doesn't run off the slabs, there's no point putting in a drainage system.

The only solution is to repave with a gradient.

Looking for a cheap solution, getting it repaved is going to be expensiv and a major inconveneicne as the whole garden and everything in it needs to be moved.

I can can have the drains pop out where the dips are, they are actually in a neat line with each other.

londonTiger

BykerSands wrote: »

What, moving to North Carolina or getting Chuck in?

Yeah moving to NC

moneyistooshorttomention

I've got a similar property and French drains were tried on a bit of my grden (and didn't work).

I'm now waiting for (quite a bit of) spare income to come into my coffers and will then replace all the man-made type stuff that I wish to replace (it needs doing anyway - as people in this area have a tendency to do "cheap" and I've come from an area with a tendency to do "attractive". Hence I will be changing it to "attractive") and turn the rest into "garden garden". During the course of this - I'm planning on sticking in some visible drainage (ie that metal slatted drain top cover) at one point in my garden. I am tossing up between a swale made of pebbles in the other Problem Point or putting a pond just before where the rain gathers there.

You could try googling for "rain garden" and it might give you some ideas.

Mojisola

londonTiger wrote: »

Is there a cheap DIY-able solution where I can dig into the ground and place a pouous 30L cistern or something which is connected to a drain which will allow the rainwater to collect in it and then slowly disperse into the soil?

londonTiger wrote: »

Looking for a cheap solution, getting it repaved is going to be expensiv and a major inconveneicne as the whole garden and everything in it needs to be moved.

I can can have the drains pop out where the dips are, they are actually in a neat line with each other.

Redoing the paving will be cheaper than any drainage system.

One other possibility is to remove some slabs and replace with soil and plants. That's probably the only cheap way of managing the problem.

moneyistooshorttomention

Mojisola wrote: »

Redoing the paving will be cheaper than any drainage system.

One other possibility is to remove some slabs and replace with soil and plants. That's probably the only cheap way of managing the problem.

Think that paving would probably be dearer personally - but I guess it depends on whether cheap manmade concrete paving slabs are used or decent stuff (ie sandstone/slate/etc)?

Furts

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Think that paving would probably be dearer personally - but I guess it depends on whether cheap manmade concrete paving slabs are used or decent stuff (ie sandstone/slate/etc)?

This would be debatable. Hopefully your paving paving will have been laid on a sand bed and be easy to lift. This means it is also easy to relay. You may not want to do this but it is the easy, cheap solution to OP's post.

OP says their paving was not laid by a professional - this may be so, but many garden slabs eventually move and settle regardless of who laid it. One just re-beds where required, but in OP's case raise at the same time to run into the vegetable patch.

PasturesNew

To keep it cheap I'd identify a handful of slabs that could be pulled up, dug down several feet, then filled with gravel. There must be some that aren't in an awkward position.