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Heavy clay garden - waterlogged and muddy

kantreas199342343kantreas199342343 Posts: 3
in Problem solving
Hello,

I am sure this is a problem other people faced and I am looking for any solutions I can deploy. My garden has a very bad case of muddy clay lawn. I thought of putting a soakaway and french drains but the ground is clay up to at least the 70-80cm I managed to dig, I would assume it doesnt get any better further down. 

Just for context, the garden has a slope away from the house but there is another house at the "bottom of the slope".  Garden size is about 14m x 12m. Will a soakaway work on a clay soil? will I need to add a pump to drain the soakaway to the house drains if the clay doesnt absorb the water? Is that even a thing?

Any ideas on how to solve the drainage issues would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance!

Andreas

Posts

  • philippasmith2philippasmith2 Posts: 3,742
    Whereabouts are you and is it just the last couple of years or so that you've had this problem ? Are you prone to flooding ?  Water table ?  There's a hell of a lot of water laying about in many areas as you know.
    There are a number of threads on here asking for advice on how to improve waterlogged ground - have you tried the Search function so that you can see what advice/solutions have been suggested previously?
    Otherwise I'm sure someone will see this and be able to advise you but a bit more info will help.   Good luck with sorting it out  :)


  • Allotment BoyAllotment Boy Posts: 6,774
    Yes just remember the water has to have somewhere to drain to. A soakaway will work providing the problem isn't too severe, and you make it a reasonable size.  Ours is about 1cubic metre, filled with brick rubble, to within about 15 cm of top, a  membrane and then topped with coarse bark chip. It's at the bottom of a slope, in an  otherwise uncultivated place,  we have a Laurel hedge at the boundary, that takes up some of the excess.
    AB Still learning

  • McRazzMcRazz Posts: 440
    Firstly, as others have pointed out this year is unprecedented for its rainfall. I checked the EA weekly figures yesterday and we're quite widely sitting at ~130% of our average rainfall nationwide over the past 12months up to Feb 5th, with more falling this week and more to come...

    Drainage is nuanced and very much site specific, but if it were me i'd first try to identify the source of the water - is it naturally collecting on the landscape, or are your problems exacerbated by runoff from elsewhere? You may find that getting in a lawn specialist to mechanically treat your lawn will address most of your issues.

    With regards to soakaways its useful to move back a step in the process and think of a soakaway more as attenuation - it can reduce the volume of water on your lawn by offsetting the issue underground and away from the problem area. Eventually this *should* soakaway naturally but this can be accelerated by allowing the water a route out and off site. Depending on how much you want to spend you could have catch pits, lift pumps and all sorts of complicated engineering to do this. Just remember you can't plumb this into the sewerage system!

    My lawn is absolutely dreadful this year. I'm not a lawn fanatic and its mostly compacted clay with natural herbaceous growth so puddles dreadfully in heavy rain. When i get round to it i plan to aerate and treat with some slit drainage and add a small french drain/gravel border adjacent to all hard landscaping/buildings with some attenuation area somewhere in the beds, probably in the form of a small wildlife pond.


  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    I think @kantreas199342343 would need to offer a lot more info including location, in particular, and what else is around the garden - buildings, planting etc. Photos would help too  :)

    We've probably had slightly more rainfall here this winter, but only because it's been much milder again, so there's been less ice/snow/frost, especially since the new year. That's the problem with any type of average though- to get that average, you need periods where the amounts are higher, and also lower   :)
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • kantreas199342343kantreas199342343 Posts: 3
    Hi all,

    Thank you very much for the advice. Unfortunately for a typical (fairly) newbuild this is a problem that seems to be the norm now. Especially the orientation of the gardens being back to back with other houses downhill leaving no options for natural drainage or "for the water to have somehwere to go".

    I appriciate your input and from reasing the above the problem is specific to each garden and I will bring a professional in to have a look at.

    Thank you again for your responses.
  • kantreas199342343kantreas199342343 Posts: 3
    Fairygirl said:
    I think @kantreas199342343 would need to offer a lot more info including location, in particular, and what else is around the garden - buildings, planting etc. Photos would help too  :)

    We've probably had slightly more rainfall here this winter, but only because it's been much milder again, so there's been less ice/snow/frost, especially since the new year. That's the problem with any type of average though- to get that average, you need periods where the amounts are higher, and also lower   :)
    I will attach some pictures as soon as I get home just for completeness and more information.
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