Getting Rid of Standing Water in Your Yard
Michael J. McGroarty
Do you have one or more areas in your yard that hold water after
a rainfall? This is a common problem, and sometimes difficult to
solve. Over the years I’ve talked with dozens of people trying to
battle this problem, and on several occasions I have been hired
to solve the problem. So what can be done?
Too often people come to me asking what kind of a tree, or what
kind of shrubs can be planted in a wet area to dry it up. This is
the wrong approach. Most plants, and I mean almost all plants are
not going to survive in an area where the soil is soggy for
extended periods of time. The roots need to breathe, and planting
a tree or shrub in a water area will kill it.
Another common approach is to try and fill the area with topsoil.
Depending on a variety of variables, this can work, but many
times adding additional soil to a wet area will only shift the
water to another area just a few feet away.
If you are lucky enough to have some natural fall to your
property, or a drainage ditch nearby, this problem is easy enough
to solve. If you happen to live in an area that was developed
over the past few years, there might even be a system to remove
storm water nearby. In many new home developments I’ve seen
storm water catch basins already installed in backyards. Trust me,
this is a good thing. There is nothing worse than having a soggy
yard all the time.
If you are fortunate to have some fall to your yard, or a
storm water system that you can drain water into, this problem is
easy to solve. Make sure you check with your local officials
before you do anything at all with a storm drain.
All you have to do is go to your local building supply center and
buy some 4” perforated plastic drain pipe. The best kind for this
purpose is the flexible kind that comes in 100’ rolls. This type
of drain pipe has small slits all around the pipe. These slits
allow water to enter the pipe so it can be carried away.
Just dig a trench from the center of the low area you are trying
to drain, to the point that you intend to drain it to. Using a
simple line level you can set up a string over top of the trench
to make sure that your pipe runs downhill all the way. A line
level is a very small level that is designed to attach to a
string. Any hardware stores sells them for just a couple of
dollars. Set the string up so it is level, then measure from the
string to the bottom of your trench to make sure you have
constant fall. You should have 6” fall for every 100’ of pipe.
The highest point is going to be the area that you are trying to
drain, so you only want your pipe deep enough at this point so it
can be covered with soil. Once the trench is dug just lay the
pipe in. At the highest end of the pipe you’ll need to insert a
strainer into the end of the pipe to keep soil from entering the
pipe. Cover the pipe with some washed stone, and then backfill
the trench with soil. The washed stone creates a void around the
pipe so that the water can find its way into the pipe.
Washed stone is usually inexpensive stone that has been washed so
it is clean and free of mud. The only part of the pipe that needs
to be exposed is the low end, where the water exits the pipe. Do
not put a strainer in that end.
If you do not have anywhere that you can drain the water to, you
still might be able to do something. But first consider what is
happening, and why the water is standing where it is. Even if you
have well drained soil, water cannot soak in fast enough during
periods of heavy rain, and it runs across the top of the ground
and eventually finds the lowest point, and either leaves the
property, or gets trapped.
If you have well drained soil, the trapped water usually soaks
in. If you have heavy clay soil, the water lays there, and the
soil underneath becomes very compacted, and the problem compounds
itself. The more water that stands, the worse the drainage gets.
What I have done in areas like this, where there is standing
water, but nowhere to drain it to, is to install a French drain
system that actually carries the water away from the low area,
and allows it to seep into the ground over a larger distance,
where the soil is not quite so compacted. To install this French
drain system you do everything exactly as explained above, except
instead of draining the water to a lower area, you can send it in
any direction you like. Even in the direction from which it came,
which is uphill.
When installing this type of system, it’s a good idea to dig a
number of shorter trenches, all heading away from the area where
the water stands. Using the line level, make sure your trenches
fall away from their point of origin so once the water enters the
pipes it will flow away from the wet spot. What is going to
happen is that during times of heavy rain the low area is still
going to trap water, but much of that water is going to seep into
the drain pipes and eventually leach into the soil under each
trench.
Because this soil has not been compacted by the standing water
and the baking sun, it will accept the water. It won’t happen
nearly as fast as if you could just drain the water to a ditch,
but at least you will have a mechanism in place that will
eventually disperse the water back into the soil. It’s a lot
easier to leach 200 gallons of water into a series of trenches
that total 100 lineal feet, than it is to expect that water to
leach into a 10’ by 10’ area that is hard and compact.
Michael J. McGroarty is the author of this article. Visit his
most interesting website,
http://www.freeplants.com and sign up
for his excellent gardening newsletter. Article provided by,
<http://gardening-articles.com>
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