Drainage from Gravel Garden

Hi all

I have recently begun to remove all the turf from my back garden in preparation to lay it with gravel to turn it into a low maintenance garden. However the turf seems to have been laid on only a couple of inches of heavy clay, beneath which is hardcore and concrete, I can only assume from when the estate was built (late 70s).

With all the rain we have had, its clear that drainage is needed, but what is the best solution as I will obviously be laying down a membrane on top of this once the remaining soil is skimmed off and the whole thing is leveled.

Thanks for any help

 

perforated drainage pipe in a trench; cover the pipe with gravel. If you are just going to have membrane covered with gravel then you could lay the pipe just below the surface and "slope" the membrane towards it, but conventionally to drain "a garden" the pipe is in a trench about 24" deep so that it drains the surrounding soil.

The water needs to go somewhere of course! If you have a storm-drain you can connect it to that is ideal, otherwise you will need to dig a socking great big hole, and fill with big stones, as a soakaway.

http://www.pavingexpert.com/drainage.htm