Flooding in clay garden - ideas to manage it

[Lockdowndramaqueen]

Hello - with all the rain we had at the start of the year and again now I have learnt that my new garden resembles a lake for days afterwards. I am looking for ideas to help drainage. The low point in the middle is the worst and you have to wade through it but the whole garden get waterlogged. It’s a large garden and one of the main draws of the house for us so keen to explore my options and get the most from it and stop it flooding quite so extremely. It seems that we are on a very clay soil and that is part of the issue. Thanks for your suggestions.

What are your ultimate plans for the garden?

Ours is mainly clay too, in the beds I’ve added so much extra compost over time is doesn’t puddle up at all now. Also planting large shrubs, small trees help to suck up the excess water. But lawn areas you just need to live with it.

Can you put a pond in as that will work with it?

We put drainage in and it’s made a big difference.

Thank you both. I definitely want to develop our boarders and will add more ahrilubs etc but there is a very large lawn so that would be a big ask. I had thought about a pond but it’s right in the middle of the garden and blocks access to the back of the garden where we have a summer house and sheds etc.

@DinosaurDiana I am definitely thinking about drainage. What did you do/ have done? How does it work?

There’s something called French drains, where you put a pipe with holes in the side and it takes the water away from the worst affected parts. If you look on YouTube, you should see how they put it in. We want to do it in our garden, but it’s a big job, so we haven’t yet.

I’d level the garden to remove the centre low spot, but also to gently slope away from the house in whatever direction the land naturally takes and then install a French drain system to drain the water to the bottom of the newly created slope. They are underground so you can have lawn over them.

We had a draining pit dug in our lawn, with pipes radiating out from it. It made a huge difference. We do still have a wet garden especially now, but it's very much improved. We could have had a duck pond before, it was that bad.

In the summer if it's very warm you can sometimes see the pit and pipes as the grass is a slightly different colour over them, but only if you are lookin at it from the upstairs window and it's been very very hot.

With clay you need to put the pipes in stone and a special fabric wrapping.
I must admit that was sceptical, but with the recent rain I’ve been impressed.
My DH did it himself but it was a bigger job than he thought. I’d pay out and get someone in.

We've got the same thing as it's clay soil over rock. I'm planning on put in a trench drain at the bottom of a sloping bed where it meets the moss lawn and floods after very heavy rain. That's like a French drain without the pipe to see if it improves things in that area.

Get drains put in. You can turf afterwards. That’ll help the beds too

lots of compost, manure, spent mushroom compost on the beds in the winter, and think about some raised beds if you want to grow things that’ll hate getting their feet wet.

I’ve got a bed that floods some winters that I’ve planted with pond marginals.

Get proper drainage put in from the outset.

If you're left with damp patches (by accident or design) then there are various plants which like damp clay - I've got a border with dogwoods, purple loosestrife , astilbes, hydrangeas, irises etc

I'd put a pond in the lowest point surrounded by bog plants, with a little bridge over it to provide access to the summer house. You can buy ready made bridges if you're don't want to make one, something like this maybe?

Ours was exactly the same OP, we had to put land drains in ours as the lie of the land meant the flooding was up against the house. It's similar to the French drains posters have suggested.

It works very well, we now have no flooding no matter how wet it is and during dry spells like last year's, the lines of the drains are very clear on the lawn as the grass is distinctly lusher over the non-drain areas.

Our NDN garden needs doing too, it still floods like ours did. The neighbour beyond them put land drains to a sump in his garden, which works very well too and was no doubt much cheaper than ours (we had our garden landscaped at the same time, so it was a big bill in the end but worth it!)

My only problem is now I really want a pond, but I'm struggling with where to site it that is suitable and doesn't have a bit of land drain going across it! If you do go down this route - and I do recommend it - then make sure you leave some areas without.

How much are you willing to spend?
If you have an a large budget I would absolutely drown it in a thick layer of compost. Regularly.
The best way of ‘improving’ clay soil is to keep adding compost and over time it should improve.

If that is too expensive an option isn’t make it into a big garden.

FFS - I’d make it into a bog ardent

😡 - GARDEN! A bog garden.

Oh thank you all, there is lots of food for thought here. I am going to research some of these suggestions and see which seems most suitable from our plot. Am very conscious with hot summers we may need the opposite.

We have lots of drainage under the lawn and in the borders plants which like clay such as crab apple trees, dogwood, geraniums and roses which are surprisingly easy to grow and love clay.

You are right to consider the other extreme that clay goes to during hot summers, my clay dries out like concrete (where I haven't improved it).

If you are interested in natural water conservation and gardening techniques you could look into berms and Swales, which is basically a system where you survey the land and then construct Swales (small ditches) and berms beside them (small raised bits) in such a way as to guide the water into the Swales and plant stuff on the berms that benefits from the water available. During wet seasons the Swales will become like streams, but during dry seasons they conserve what water there is for your plants. Google if interested because my knowledge is imperfect I expect.

Also I can highly recommend a willow tree for drinking an excess of water. My parent used to have an annoying occasional stream running down their lawn and causing problems, and planted a willow 30yrs ago. It quickly sorted the problem for them, and appears to be able to weather the droughts we get around here (SE) perfectly well. If you do this make sure it is planted far enough from the house and any other structures.