My lawned back garden gets flooded every tiem it rains heavily

[MamaGlee]

how can I stop this?

Hmm. It depends.

What's causing the flooding? Is it simply rain not soaking away? Or is there run-off from nearby hard surfaces? Or a stream overflowing?

The simplest way to improve drainage is to make sure the lawn is not compacted. Either buy/hire a lawn aerator or use a garden fork to make holes in the lawn and fill them with sand. (Google lawn aeration and you'll probably find some 'how to' advice). If that doesn't fix it, you could create a drainage sump at the lowest end of the lawn by digging a trench, filling it with gravel and turfing over the top. And/or you could lay clay drainage pipes under the lawn, but these are getting increasingly complicated so try the easier things first!

Some useful info here

Thanks Trowel that's really helpful! There's no stream nearby, but the drive is gravelled and slightly higher tahn the lawn - could it be run off from that, I wonder?

We will certainlky try the things you suggested

wow trowel offered some great advice. I was just going to ask if you had clay soil, as our grass used to flood like that when we had. At our current house, our gravel drive floods in heavy rain, but its only temporary. I.e. It drains a little while after a heavy storm.

I don't know if its clay soil

green fingered i am not

do you have any borders or just lawn? If you have borders, dig down. If the soil is greyish and sticky then its got clay in it (when i was a kid we used to make clay pots from our garden soil :-)) because the clay is so sticky it doesn't let the water through. If just lawn you could try poking a narrow metal tube down into it to get a sample.

My old house was pretty much built on top of clay, the result was that it was sodden underfoot (and I mean you squelch down the garden) from September to June.

In the end I dug a border around the lawn about 1/2 meter deep and filled it with shingle. For decoration I had pots in the shingle.

Its a bit of an extreme measure, but it did make the garden a bit dryer.