Back Garden Re-vamp

Hi all.
I'm currently undertaking the task of pimping up the back garden. I keep ducks and hens and over the winter it flooded badly.

You can see the standing water beginning in the pic but at its height it was about 2 foot shy of the greenhouse.

The water is now gone and I want to improve the drainage of the soil. It's clay but it breaks up in your hand when you work it. I have about 2 tonne of topsoil also to raise the level to stop the flooding.

This is what I was left with when the tide went out




I'm hoping to improve the soil drainage and stop it flooding in the future. If I dig up the ground and turn it over and break up the lumps of clay will that help any ?
If I plant mustard green manure will it's deep roots make a difference ?

I'm planning on putting a pond down there for the ducks and or maybe a little mock river. Any suggestions as to what plant life will be animal proof and clay soil loving ??
I'm also going to make raised beds for growing veg and plan to put a small lawn area down. I am also thinking about making cold frames to run along the outside of the chicken run. Possibly incorporating some fresh manure to heat them as it rots down. Oh and I'm thinking about getting a half dozen quails.

Any suggestions and or advice will be greatly received.

Thank you all
( ps the greenhouse is for chillis )

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Hi Jonathan,

I'm on clay as well - digging over the surface does help with drainage - but as soon as you walk on it, it will compact and make the water pool.

I'm trying to overcome this by installing raised beds - dug over and filled in with top soil - the water will penetrate the ground through the raised beds. The paths between the raised beds will be topped with 20 mm limestone - no weed membrane - when you walk on the clay and compact it, no weeds will come through.

Animal proof planting - a quick growing evergreen - try cherry laurel - I have some and they are thriving in my clay soil. I believe they are poisonous so best checking. Or, Hornbeam - this is a clay tolerant hedging plant.

Not sure that simply raising the garden with top soil would work - the water would still sit on top of the clay beneath the now sodden top soil.

I've tried field bean green manure - the idea being long roots to break up and then you dig it in to improve the soil structure. Did it work for me? - well no not really - as soon as I stood on the soil it compacted again. May as well dig in some compost.

I think raised beds are the way forward.

 

Clanless is right, raising the height with topsoil will make no difference to the drainage. The soil needs to be opened up. Dig it over to at least a spades depth and then dig in small gravel and/or sand. If this doesn't solve the problem then you may find that you have to put in a full drainage system.

 

Where I get the flooding the ground runs down into a little dip. I was hoping if it was more level then the water wouldn't collect there. The topsoil was for that. Would that help at all ?

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But you've said that it almost reaches your greenhouse Jonathan. That is nearly half of your garden.

I don't think filling a little dip is going to solve your problem, sorry. The ground is obviously compacted and saturated which means it needs some good drainage or you will have flooding issues every winter. Of course it is your choice but gardening is like diy, the preparation makes a lot of difference.

 

Hi JH can i ask how do your neighbour's overcome this problem? Am i correct in seeing that in your photos while sadly you appear to be unfortunately suffering water logging they seem not too! Do hope you can get some help/advice

 

One of your main problems is the height of next doors garden level, as far as I can see there garden level is roughly 5 bars down the fence, and I guess next doors will be the same ?,

You will be getting run of from both gardens, looks like a hard one to fix, well lots more than a few ton.

 

I had a similar problem - although not my whole lawn wiped out, I must admit, but I had standing water for a number of days. My left-hand side neighbour built a shed one year on brick piles and it sunk one end the next! After every storm our lawns turned into a quagmire. It doesn't take much water to destroy a lawn and I think, it doesn't take as much as it might appear to put it right. A clay garden is very good - the richest type of soil you can have so it's worth fighting for. The right-hand neighbour's lawns are higher than mine: at the back his driveway is three foot higher and when it's raining you can see the water flooding off onto my lawn.

I flirted with installing these:

Water leaks into the clay pipes and runs away at a slight incline to a sink hole. They're about a pound each on e-bay.

But I more or less solved it by:

Planting trees on the side the water's coming in from. I used Crack Willow. I cracked off some long branches from a tree in the park (newer growth), stood them in water for a few weeks with some propagation powder until I got roots and planted them in a row by the fence at one foot intervals in some well dug, composted soil. They shot up and they suck up the water. My left-hand neighbour's got a tree every four square yards. If you can plant any other trees anywhere, especially fast-growing broadleaves like crack, pussy or weeping willow then they'll help. I've planted oak and birch too. Mature trees drink anything from 15 to 50 gallons a day.

Digging through the mineral pan. I dug all my flower beds very deeply, some three foot deep, and I always put sand, large amounts of straw and large stones at the very bottom and keep the clay from re-solidifying by putting the soil back mixed with peat and compost. About two foot down I found a hard mineral pan and dig through it whenever I'm planting anything. Flowers are not up to much but the waterlogging has gone. In the worst affected part I made a sandpit for the child with a 1 x 1 metre frame. I went a bit mad with that and dug down five and a half foot. Yes. Through the builder's rubble, through the mineral pan, through the thick clay, through everything. And I filled it with hardcore, then ballast, then flat stone chips and a top layer of nice white pool filtration sand. Worth it's weight in gold that is if you've got children.

My other neighbour had waterlogging too. He did two things:

First he raised the level of his lawn. So the water comes into my lawn instead. Then he dug a large pit in the worst affected area. He lined it with concrete and installed two 1000-litre containers. Over it went trays and filters to collect water from the lawn. It's covered by the lawn. A small electric pump takes the water to their kitchen sink or to water his plants.

 

This seems a bit worse than I thought.
The gardens either side are only a fraction higher than mine so I'm assuming I get the run off. My garden has only flooded like this this one time and the weather here was extreme. The water does subside relatively quickly but where the animals are I get a muddy sludge left over . It dries but takes a while.
I was hoping by raising my level a little it would prevent the run off from next door.

You can see what I mean from the bottom of the pic.

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IF : I planted a low growing hedge along the fence line raise the ground with the top soil and strategically place stepping stones so I don't need to stand on exposed soil will I at least reduce the severity of the mud ? Just don't want the chickens paddling around in it.

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I think the top soil is a secondary thing 'cos at the mo' we know water's coming in but not why it won't go away. I'd want to know so I could make the right decisions.

How about an experiment? You could dig a straight-sided hole, two or three foot down to see if there's a hard clay pan or layer. Try digging through it six inches or so. You might need a fork.

Fill the hole with water one evening then fill it again the next day. The idea is to measure the drop in water level every hour for a few hours. Then let us know and we'll have a much better idea what's going on.

Any plant will use some water up but trees are best. Are you worried about losing the view?
.

 

This might help.

http://www.hintsandthings.co.uk/garden/lawndrainage.htm

 

I will definitely try the water in the hole.i will do it Sunday when I'm not working and it's hopefully not raining. I was digging a bit more this morning and the ground is solid after about 10cm for about another 15 then once you get through its pretty easy going. There is clay but it just falls to bits in your hand. The solid layer seems to be a mix of soil and gravel compacted.

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Sounds like a soil pan - unlucky it's so close to the surface. In one part of my garden I couldn't get a fork through it: I had to use a pick axe. Have you got a stream close by?

The water test will tell you more.

 

No stream near us no. I don't get flooding every year. In the 6 years I lived here this is the first time. I do get some standing water after prolonged rain that does drain away after a couple days. When we had the water in the picture it was relentless for about a week. People in Carlisle had water upto the car roofs. Just trying to prevent the severity if it ever happens again ( sure it will sometime )

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