What to do about my flooded yard?

Category: My New Garden | Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 2:37 am

My yard floods, badly. The only spot that doesn't stand in water and gets sun because it's not under a ton of trees is in the back right side of my yard.

But, it has a ton of roots on top of the soil.

I was doing square foot gardening at my old house and I want to continue it here as well. But there is no way I can do it without either removing the roots (not gonna happen) or building that area up.

The only solution I can think of is to use all the mulching stuff that we removed from around the yard to lay a barrier down, then put my 12 x 4 beds on top of it.

Would using old mulch, that is mostly leaves and pine needles, be a problem you think? I could cover it with black cloth to keep the weeds and pokey nature of it down.

It would also serve a purpose in keeping the garden raised enough to not sit in water.

Lay of the land ( photo / image / picture from LittleSister's Garden )

Mulch again ( photo / image / picture from LittleSister's Garden )

Huge pile of 'mulch' ( photo / image / picture from LittleSister's Garden )

Eventually I'd like to build a little raised deck with built in beds somehow. But that will have to come after a ton of other things.

I'd love to hear your comments and/or any other solutions.

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mart wrote on Thu Aug 26, 2010 6:42 pm:

Is your soil clay based? If so I would install a french drain before building the area up. That would allow the water to drain off. You would still have a problem with that much water under the mulch if you just put it on top. It would not be expensive and would carry the water away from your yard.

Jewell wrote on Wed Sep 01, 2010 7:22 pm:

Wow! That's a lot of water to be around the house. Hope you can find a way of keeping the water moving to a lower area. If not I would think more in terms of digging down and creating a bog area. If you build the soil up the new lowest spot will fill with water and hopefully that is not under your home. Mart is right in that a french drain is necessary if not digging down. Water, water, water???

LittleSister wrote on Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:47 pm:

After talking to a couple of landscapers, it's going to cost a ton of money if I want to do a french drain from the back to the front drain. They'd have to remove a cement courtyard, go around the main drain etc.

I could do a french drain and have it empty into an open gravel filled container about 300 yards away, except the water table is low here. I'm 17 feet above sea level. It could be done but after they mentioned the price my dh's head nearly blew up lol

The water is only in the middle of the yard, think a big bowl sitting there. Where I want the garden gets no standing water to begin with.

No worries about going under the house. We sit on a slab foundation. The house is sitting on a tiny rise of land as well.

I may just build raised legged beds and be done with it.

Thanks for the advice y'all!

LittleSister wrote on Wed Sep 01, 2010 10:52 pm:

Oh and the reason they want to put it into the parish drain system is because we'd have to get permission and permits from the parish to change anything on the land when it comes to drainage. That costs money we won't ever have in one fell swoop.

We can't even get permission to cut down two 120 feet pine trees less than 3 feet from our house. Since Hurricane Katrina the rules have changed and I'm not sure anyone actually understands them.