HOW TO DRAIN A WATERLOGGED GARDEN

← PowerGreen Interview: The Garden NoviceI give in. I’m carving a pumpkin on Friday. → How to drain a waterlogged garden. Posted on October 25, 2011 by PGT Share11 As the night unfolded many in and around the Dublin area found their homes under threat from rising waters. Dundrum was lost under at least a metre of water and many on the commuting lines found the DART and Luas halted as lines went down. With this in mind and no where near a pun – we thought we would pop up some tips on how to drain a waterlogged garden, (from Gardening Info Zone) Garden Drainage Systems to Improve Soil Waterlogged gardens are a misery. They are impossible to cultivate and plants won’t thrive in such infertile soils. Every garden needs a good drainage system. The garden needs moisture to enable plants to flourish, and in most gardens the balance is about right; rain falls, seeps into the soil and drains away naturally. But if something disturbs this natural balance, the result is a garden that is a soggy swamp most of the time. Few plants can thrive with waterlogged roots, and wet soil is very hard to work when it comes to digging and planting. Worst of all is a lawn that is always soft and wet underfoot; every footfall leaves a mark and mud is constantly carried round the house from the garden. Waterlogging occurs for a variety of reasons. One of the commonest problems — and the easiest to put right — is soil that has become compacted because it has not been recently worked. Heavy clay soils are particularly bad in this respect. Compacted soil keeps water standing on the surface so that it cannot reach plant roots. The solution is a vigorous programme of double digging, incorporating plenty of organic matter such as manure, straw or compost to help break up the soil and improve its water-holding capacity. A similar problem is common in the gardens of newly built houses. When clearing a site, builders often remove the topsoil and spread excavated material over the garden area. They then inadvertently compact it with the movement of heavy machinery, and later cover everything up with a thin layer of topsoil or poor quality subsoil. The result is an impermeable layer just below the surface, preventing adequate garden drainage. Again, the solution to improve soil is to double-dig and to incorporate organic matter. However natural problems are the worst, such as a layer of non-permeable rock close to the surface, or an area where the water table — the natural level of ground water — is particularly high. In the latter case, prolonged rainfall causes the water table to rise until it reaches the surface, resulting in standing water. With both these problems, the only practical solution is to install a land-drainage system. If you move house in the summer, you may not discover that you have a garden drainage problem until winter. The best way of spotting a potential disaster area is to look at what is growing in the garden; stunted sickly looking shrubs, rushy grass and bare patches of lawn are all tell-tale signs of garden drainage trouble. Gauging Soil Porosity I remember having to do this in a house build in Dualla, Cashel, Co Tipperary – I was amazed to see the drainage work perfectly. Speeding ahead four years and a friend showed me one they had dug during her house build. Water remained in-situ for days – it was a lot of work to get the garden clear. To gauge how well the garden drains, dig a hole about 60cm (2ft) square and 60cm (2ft) deep. Leave it for 24 hours to see if any water collects in it; if it does, the garden is suffering from impeded drainage caused by a high water table or non-porous subsoil, and definitely needs drainage. If the hole remains dry, fill it with water and see how quickly it drains away. If it empties in about 12 hours drainage is very good — in fact too good — probably because the soil is very sandy. Rapid drainage can be slowed down by enriching the soil with lots of organic matter. If the hole takes 24 hours to empty, drainage is adequate; if the water is still standing in the hole after 48 hours, the soil is probably too dense and needs breaking up thoroughly by double-digging. Some simple drainage may also be necessary. Simple Garden Drainage Techniques Soggy areas can sometimes be improved by installing garden drainage trenches. These help to divert water running across the garden from higher ground, conveying it to a soakaway or a natural outlet such as a ditch or stream. On no account must any land drainage system be connected to the main sewage system. The simplest type of garden drainage system is a trench about 75cm (2-1/2ft) deep with a lining of coarse rubble (brushwood is less satisfactory because it eventually rots and allows the trench to collapse under the weight of the covering soil). Unless you have access to a reasonable quantity of rubble, contact a local demolition firm and arrange to have a load delivered. Give the trench a fall along its length of about 1 in 100, running to the ditch or soakaway. This is just a hole about 90cm (3ft) deep and filled to within about 30cm (1ft) of the surface with loose-packed brick rubble or clinkers. Spread the hardcore to a depth of about 30cm (lft) along the base of the trench. To prevent soil washing in and clogging up the hardcore, cover it with polythene sheeting or glass fibre matting before back-filling the trench with the excavated soil. waterlogged garden Drogheda flood Dundrum Centre Share11 This entry was posted in Gardening tips and tagged drainage, flooding, garden, tips, waterlogged. Bookmark the permalink. ← PowerGreen Interview: The Garden NoviceI give in. I’m carving a pumpkin on Friday. → Leave a Reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Name * Email * Website Comment You may use these HTML tags and attributes:

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