Waterlogged lawn - what to do now?

[Emilyed]

Help!

Following the heavy rains our small back garden has turned into a waterlogged muddy mess.

The grass was already a bit thin but the rains have resulted in areas of mud without much grass. Its 'squelchy' and in places there are pools of water - not too deep but they dont seem to go away.

Talking to family members we have been advised to top dress and reseed in the spring but what can we do now to get rid of the standing water?

And when they say spring do they mean March or will doing in May be more successful. Or could we do it in February? We are on the South coast so dont get much in the way of frost or snow

Any advice welcome!

It will drain once the heavy rain stops.
And I’ve found that the most patchy lawn recovers in the summer.

I don’t think there is much you can do to get rid of the water, it will drain away in time.
It will help recovery if you can keep off it while it’s so wet.

Can you fork it?

I'd use a fork to make lots of small holes to allow the water to drain, then I'd chuck a load of seeds over the top

Don't touch it let it drain naturally

Do absolutely nothing aside from not walk on it at the moment. My garden is on heavy clay and exactly the same, it will revive itself in spring. If you want to feel better then look at Monty Don on Instagram his whole garden is flooded and he is unbothered.

I agree with @Petronus and that it needs to be left as it is and not walked on at all while it is sodden.

Wait until it has dried out a fair bit, maybe in a month or so, and then you need to do some aeration. You don't need to add anything or top dress, just make holes in it. Push a garden fork in as far as it will go, and then wiggle slightly, then remove the fork and do the same thing again 6 inches away. Walk backwards as you do it, so you aren't treading on the bit you've just done. You will end up with a heck of a lot of holes, but they will let air in where it is needed, and do close up again on the surface fairly quickly. Sprinkle lawn seed liberally on any bare patches.

The other thing to do is to think about improving the drainage long-term, which might mean putting in a soakaway or a land drain. You need to remove the cause of the waterlogging, otherwise it will just keep happening.

We had this when a new build at the back of our house messed up drainage. The whole garden was about 2 inches deep in water. We dug a couple of soakaways - big holes at least 1m cubed - where the worst of the flooding was. Fill with gravel, add top soil and then grass on top. Sorted our flooding out permanently.

No point in forking - walking on it will completely outweigh any benefit.

No point in draining it to unless you have somewhere to drain it too.

To not too

It'll drain naturally. Chuck some feed and seed on it in Spring if you like but I rarely do. Sorts itself out!

Our lawn is like this at this time of year. The plus point is that it fared very well in the extreme heat we had last year. It's the ideal lawn for global warming.

Thank you for all the advice - looks like I should hold still and leave it for now but I will get to work in the spring. Looks like we've got 10 days at least of no rain coming up so it will drain / freeze

My garden is in the same situation and waiting to be drained.