our garden slopes down to a park which is beyond a common access track.
the garden has always been wet and after a lot of rain water would push up between concrete cracks at the bottom of the garden. This didn't matter much. Last year the poplar in the park beyond died and its been fairly wet. We now have a boggy patch in the lawn and water running down the path, one small bed is totally waterlogged. Beyond the garden outside the neighbours back gate the water accumulates because it cannot get beyond a slightly raised concreted section at the back of the neighbour two away, I doubt anything not 4x4 could now get through the access track. Where would you start looking for a solution, Thames water? The Council? Some DIY work?
I have a similar problem. Essentially we have solved it by building raised beds and also by throwing down hardcore and MOT type 1 (limestone) and covering that with the topsoil we scarped off earlier. The 'stream' now runs UNDER the ground as it were, in the hardcore!
The key is as with any land drainage to provide a fast water path under the land you want not to be a bog. That gets the water to where you want it without screwing up your bit of land. General ideas include what I described - a porous layer under the topsoil - or porous pipes herringboned into the subsoil, or mole ploughing which is the same, but slightly less permanent.
Its a perennial problem as more and more trees are cut down, and more an more land is tarmacked and paved over.
Drainage beyond your property boundary is usually the local council, or the local water authorities responsibility: However most suburban council shave forgotten that ditches even exist, or what they are for. The tendency is also to simply take runoff sewers as rapidly as possible to the nearest stream or river, pass teh water downstream and make it someone elses problem!
If the access road is private, consider raising it with MOT sub base, and putting drainage channels down the side. If its public, try the council. But don't hold your breath, compared with the lesbian black disabled wheelchair drop in center, ditches don't gain many brownie points these days. Mind you, that's a point. Cultivate a lesbian black wheel chair user and complain that she cant get in your back gate.
That'd work - I had n African, bisexual, patially disabled GF and she go everything going. I said that all she lacked was an illegitimate child; her eyes lit up - I got worried!
Naw just be patient and wait. The government assure us that global warming is to increase and water will be at a premium, and we all believe politicians, don't we?
Invest in a small bottling plant. Print labels claiming 'natural' and 'healthy'. Sell the stuff, make a fortune. Suggest 'Poplar Springs' as the name of your company.
Why not make a feature of it and make a natural pond, the overflow from that you could route into the road drainage system, but it would always be worth checking that it is a spring not a water leak from a pipe so give the water people a ring and tell them they have a leak they will soon tell you if its nothing to do with then!
its very season/weather dependent and there's been boggy ground in the park nearbye till they drained it, so I think its natural. Unfortunately there is no road drainage downhill from where it is. Breaking News! We have found a drain in the track behind the house, a neighbour has cleared it and that has cleared the track of water. I imagine it runs down to the river, will find out more. So if I can route the water out of sight in the garden as suggested, things may be OK.
I've invented a trick to drain grass where I cut out turfs along where I want it to drain, then slice earth off the bottom of the turfs and slope the edges of the new ditch then replace the turfs so there's a depression running down the lawn.. in the dry it's not noticeable and you can run and walk and cycle without falling in but in the wet the water follows it downhill..
I ahve various inspection pits dug in the earth round my house and i look at the levels of water in them after rainfall and adjust and evolve the drainage...
Is there more sloping ground above the garden? If so, the answer is to build an intercepting drain (which could be a gravel filled ditch under the grass) at the highest part of the garden and to pipe the water from that to the bottom. The garden then only has to deal with the water falling on it, not that plus any water falling on the hill above.
It is still feeding water onto your land, so a very effective way to keep your land dryer is to intercept that water with a drain at the top of your land.
much too large scale for this, I think a foot wide and deep run of gravel with slabs on top at the wettest point and raising the path a couple of inches is best idea so far for the actual site. The plan is a bit blocked by a large shrubs roots so will have to hope it flows through that, not perfect but we will see. Thanks for all ideas BTW
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