help needed for garden

hi only moved into my house in october and after a few weeks realised the back garden has very little drainage even the drainage on the drain pipes are a soak away no open drains and the garden slopes down to my back door which opens into my living room so with 3 dogs you can imagine the mud that is coming in the house because the grass is dying in the garden where it is so wet.
what I would like to do is at the back of the garden where the slope starts is to plant some plants that will soak up the moisture that is running into the garden before it comes down to the small patio area which gets flooded when it rains.
I know the obvious thing to do is to dig a soak away and fill up with stones but unfortunatley one of my dogs thinks he can eat stones and is nearly 4 and has had 3 operations so far to remove stones that he has eaten !!! he is trying to dig up mud to find stones, in my other house he was digging concrete. so I thought about putting some moisture loving plants in to help soak up the wet that will even live in the winter as well.
my garden is only small about 18ft x 12ft so trees are out of the question.
my husband is disabled so the work will be down to me and I am not that strong !!! so any ideas will be greatly appreciated. I hope to reseed the grass once I sort some plants out to help with my problem.
forgot to mention the house is only 8 years old so under the grass is lots of builders rubble we found that out trying to put in a rotary line and kept hitting stones underneath
sorry this is so long but now starting to get desperate to solve this problem on a small budget
thanks

 

Blimey, You've got some problems there.

Welcome to the best ever gardening forum by the way.:thmb:

First thing to do is put some bark chippings down to stop the mud coming in.

 

I would have done that but the dog eats that as well and digs it up he is a big problem like the garden the other two dogs are fine just the male one black labrador

 

Carpet for the time being then

 

Plants won't absorb the water ... well ... they will ... but not in the way that drains well / fast enough.

If you have a problem with water standing / running off the garden then you need drains.

It will help to "open up" the ground - its the principle used with mole-draining agricultural land: the farmer pulls a torpedo-shaped object attached to the bottom of a blade across the fields - this opens up a "drainage tube" where the torpedo goes through the soil, and the slit made by the vertical blade allows water to percolate down to the hollow tube. The downside is that these "drains" fill in within a few years. Its similar to sticking a fork into the lawn, wiggling it about a bit, then moving it a few inches and repeating - it gives the water a means of soaking in, and is particularly helpful where the surface is compacted - because the water can then soak away if the lower soil is not compacted.

But these are all work-arounds for proper drains. If the dog wants to eat anything that isn't "lawn" (I know what you mean, our dogs are "curious" like that too - but not as obsessive as yours sound!) then you could make a French drain - just dig a trench, backfill with gravel about a foot deep, then put the topsoil and turf back on top - but, IMHO, if you are going to that much trouble you might as well put a land-drain in - get a reel of "perforated draining pipe" and stick it in the bottom of the trench before you put the gravel in.

I find this site full of useful information about drains: http://www.pavingexpert.com/drainage.htm

 

Not so sure your going to solve it with plants alone .
You say the drain pipes (persumably on the house) are into a soakaway not an open drain ..do they just go into a pipe which disappears into the ground . On an 8yr old house would think they are not into a soakaway more likely a public drainage system (Not the foul sewer system )
In an ideal situation you need some form of a slit drain across your garden into this system, this would take away the excess water..
Another way is a 15/18in deep trench across the garden a few inches of pea gravel in the base, lay a perferated drainage pipe which needs to go into your drainage system then cover pipe with more pea gravel (you could cover the gravel with soil and turf to stop the dogs eating the gravel )
Not a simple fix unfortunatly .As Ziggy says maybe a couple of photos might help .

Dave

 

Kristen sorry didn't see your reply before I posted mine .. Pretty similar response though .

Dave

 

"Pretty similar response though"

Always a relief when that happens :thumb:

 

hi the drainpipes just go straight in to the ground with some sort of soak away underneath it is a housing association house quite a few of us have this problem but the ha wont do anything about it because they say the cost is to great. my neighbour has dug the trench and filled with stones but he still gets the same problem, the houses that are at the back of our garden all their water runs into ours as well nothing goes into the storm drains as they arent any was trying to get some sort of easy fix and thought of planting at the back to try and soak some of the water when it rains at the moment its just sticky mud out there its only a problem when it rains hard

 

Not good .
The trouble is that any trench or pit will pull and collect the water, but without a means of draining that water away you will always get this problem .obviously the bigger the pit (soakaway) the more water it will hold ..
Unusual for no storm drainage on 8yr building .This problem not just a quick fix one unfortunatly..

Dave

 

Get in touch with the local councils Building Regulation Inspector & demand to know who signed off the completion certificate on a new build that obviously does not meet the regulations.

Housing Association or not, if it doesn't pass then it should not have been signed off. If its not signed off then no one should be living there so the housing association cannot collect rent.

That might get their attention.

 

Your house must have drains so you need to channel the water into one. Ask a builder to come around and advise you and give you a price. Might not be as expensive as you may think.
I use to show and breed dogs at one time but they were never allowed on the garden for obvious reasons. They were kept in a pen.

 

Its a criminal offence to contravene building regulations. Its likeley that the drainage was on the plans(usually prepared by a building surveyor or architect) otherwise building regs wouldn't have approved them before work was started.

It is possible, that in an effort to complete the work & get paid, the drainage was ommited by the building contractors and that it wasn't picked up by the building inspector.

Either way, it should have adequate drainage and some one is at fault if it hasn't.