Landscape Drainage Solutions For Your Yard

Poor landscape drainage isn’t merely an aesthetic problem. Standing water jeopardizes the health of your lawn and landscape plantings. Standing water can also be a health hazard, as it gives rise to mosquitoes and other pests. Additionally, excess stormwater may ultimately find its way into your basement, causing expensive damage.

Common Drainage Problems

Most homes and businesses have gutter downspouts that go straight to the ground, where all the water rolling off the roof collects in one place. This is the most common landscape drainage problem. Simply extending downspouts away from the building so that they carry rainwater at least 10’ away from the structure solves this issue.

Water pooling up on your lawn after a heavy rain indicates that the soil is too compacted for the water to effectively penetrate. This could indicate a need for dethatching, aeration, or both. 

Signs of thatch build-up include a lawn that feels spongy or seems to dry out quickly. Small areas can be dethatched with a dethatching rake, which you use in the same manner as a garden rake. Landscape professionals use a dethatching machine, which looks similar to a lawn mower but slices the turf grass vertically rather than horizontally.

When soil is compacted, it is packed too densely, preventing water from penetrating. When the water cannot penetrate the soil, it sits on top, creating swamps and puddles in your lawn. 

Aeration involves making holes in the lawn by either pushing a rod into it or extracting a plug of soil. This process breaks up thatch and relieves soil compaction. Aeration service from Landworks improves water, nutrient, and oxygen movement to the root system.

Landscape Drainage System Options

If a soggy lawn continues to be a problem even after dethatching and aerating, a permanent landscape drainage system may be the solution. Two popular options beyond the common French drain are dry creek beds and catch basins.

A dry creek bed, sometimes called an arroyo or dry stream bed, is a shallow trench lined with landscape fabric and filled with rocks of varying sizes. This creates a collection point for the water to slowly soak into the soil. In addition to directing water away from areas where it pools, a dry creek bed also offers an attractive and low maintenance focal point.

A catch basin system is a large drain installed at the lowest point of your lawn so that water runs down into the basin rather than collecting anywhere else. The water then flows from the basin to an outlet in an area that can handle the runoff.

If you have water pooling in multiple areas of your yard, grading may be the solution. Landworks will adjust the grade of your property, either by hand or with a machine, to direct the flow of water away from the house and toward your basin or other landscape drainage system. 

For more information about landscape drainage, call Landworks at (913) 422-9300. To request a quote, click here.