A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2005 Drainage

I'm looking for inexpensive ways to create better drainage in my dads backyard. preferably with out having to dig up and relandscape the backyard. The back of the yard sits higher that the house does so all the water flows directly to the house and a ferw times this year the window well has filled up to the point where it flodded the basement. There are two huge maples in the back yard which will make digging up the yard to lay weeping tile an pain due to roots.

Any Suggestions?

Hi Shani ,
My front yard is higher then my home and I have taken the following precautions and have not had the problems as my neighbors had :
1. I placed a bumper bed around the house. This bed actually serves to alter the course of the water and it runs off around the house.
2. I dug an 8inch deep trench in front of the beds and ran a french drain with 3-4 additional drains to stop the water about six feet before it gets to the house.
3. I take all the run-off from the roof and have it expelled through similar hoses out the rear of the house. In the summer I have rain barrels to capture that water for the garden. I find the biggest problem most folks have is the gutter runoffs soak the ground near the home and take away any absorption opportunity it had. Re directing the gutters could really help .
The hose is really cheap and the digging is fairly easy, you only need to go down slightly more then the 6 inches the pipe needs. I got about 100' of that hose for abiout $30.00 at Home Depot.
Good Luck

Thanks for the information

For BFVISION,

Saving rainwater info at

http://www.gardenwatersaver.com/contest.html

There are also plants that like having run off water to grow. They were suggested to me when I lived in washington state as a way to deal with runoff water.