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Drainage help please

Colin SmythColin Smyth Posts: 10
in Problem solving
Bought a new house recently and started on the rear garden right away. Dug out decent trenches to plant a hedge, about a spit and a half deep by 3ft wide and bought in loads of new topsoil. However, they have flooded already. The garden is heavy clay which is surrounding the trenches, making them fill up like bathtubs.

Any advice on how to rectify this?


Posts

  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    Did they fill up from rain, or without rain?
  • Colin SmythColin Smyth Posts: 10
    Hi Skandi, a mixture of both. The gutter above the patio which leads on to garden is leaking which doesn’t help either. 
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Sounds as if you’ve dug a ‘sump’. I would first sort out the guttering and work out where the run off from the patio is going to go, and then work on improving the whole area (drainage if necessary, and working in manure and coarse grit) before digging a trench for a hedge of anything else.  
    Any planting hole in unimproved clay will act as a sump, filling with water in the winter and drying out in the summer. 
    The good news is that once improved, clay can be one of the most fertile of soils. 😀 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • Colin SmythColin Smyth Posts: 10
    Thanks Dove, my thinking was running some sort of drainage from the trenches down the slope. Will get Googling!
  • RubytooRubytoo Posts: 1,630
    edited January 2019
    Is it a new house as in new build?
    If so you have my sympathy, well have my sympathy anyway if it is that bad which it looks.

    If it is the first I would have a darn good moan at the developers. See if it gets you anywhere. And if your neighbours have the same problem form a group.
    It is shameful what developers get away with.

    Otherwise please give more details of the garden layout, patio, land falls, slopes, sizes of gardens so others can give you more specific advice about drainage.

    You might be better off putting some of the clay back for now? It holds a lot of water, no pun intended.
    You know what you have to fix too:wink:

    Look online for Test pit, soakaway and percolation should find you some sites for the diameter holes you need to dig and percolation rates, which is to do with measuring how quickly they drain...or not.
    Good luck
  • Colin SmythColin Smyth Posts: 10
    Cheers Del. Will look into that. 
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