Help with drainage

[bwgan]

Hi guys,

I've got one or two problems with my garden.

We bought our house last year from two elderly people who haven't been around for a while ([:-angel]) and the garden was left to grow wild for a few years. The garden is on an incline and the plan is to cut everything down (which I've done and pulled out all the roots). My brother and I have started digging the land back to build a wall and then throw all the soil behind it. My problem is the earth at the bottom of the garden is fine, really loamy but at the top it is quite clayie. To make matters wores there is a large pond at the top. I've emptied the pond and found new homes for all its locals. Once I'd cleared all the cr@p out of the pond I found out to my dismay that there is no lining to the pond, just clay. I've staretd to dig a drainage ditch going length ways across the pond and have started to fill the pond in with the soil that I've dug out already. The problem is that the soil that I throw into pond is turning into thick gloopy mud. What can I do to stop this turning into some sort of quick sand pit that Tarzan would have to come and pull you out of???

(

Image Insert:

922.13 KBI've tried to attach a picture of the garden. The pic is taken from the bottom of the garden and the pond is up at the top behind the dog. The hole you can see is where my brother and I have started to dig out)

Cheers and sorry its a long question

[hausdok]

OK,

I've read it several times and, frankly, I'm lost. Anyway, I'm not sure I could help anyway. I'm a home inspector not a landscape architect or a pond guru. Maybe someone else can offer some suggestions.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Scottpat]

Sounds like the pond might have a little spring supplying it with water.

[John Dirks Jr]

Originally posted by Scottpat

Sounds like the pond might have a little spring supplying it with water.

Ditto.

If you want to fill that area where the pond was, you may have to dig an under drain. This will be a trench filled with gravel that will give the spring a path to disperse its water elsewhere.

[Jim Katen]

Your dog looks like a hyena.

Fill out your profile so that we know where you live. It might help us to give you better advice.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[bwgan]

Cheers for the comments. The dog isn't a hyena, but a weimaraner. He has been a great help with the digging, except he chucks the dirt the wrong way. I live in North Wales in UK.

I'll try and get some more photos today.

[Jim Baird]

Just remember to keep some bamboo growing near it. That way, if you fall in you can grab a reed to breathe thru after your head goes under.

[hausdok]

Originally posted by bwgan

Hi guys,

I've got one or two problems with my garden.

We bought our house last year from two elderly people who haven't been around for a while ([:-angel]) and the garden was left to grow wild for a few years. The garden is on an incline and the plan is to cut everything down (which I've done and pulled out all the roots). My brother and I have started digging the land back to build a wall and then throw all the soil behind it.

OK, now I think I'm tracking. Being British, when you're referring to "garden" you're talking about the entire yard, not just a small area planted with flowers or vegetables. The fence on the left in the photo is stepped and climbs away from the photographer, so I'm guessing that the photographer is standing at the house looking away toward the back of the yard and your intent was to get the yard draining away from the house in the direction of the dog; thus the excavation.

I hope your retaining wall isn't going to be some posts or stakes in the ground with a board or two propped behind it like I see in the photo, because it won't work; any wall you build will need to be anchored into the earth behind it or it will eventually belly and collapse.

Go to your local library and pick up a book that explains how to build proper retaining walls that are secured in place with dead-men (the term used here for such anchors). By the looks of that excavation, by the time you reach the area where that dog is you're going to need to make that retaining wall U-shaped.

How is the terrain at either side of the yard? Are you inadvertently creating a retention pond where all of the runoff from your neighbors' yards is going to collect?

My problem is the earth at the bottom of the garden is fine, really loamy but at the top it is quite clayie. To make matters worse there is a large pond at the top. I've emptied the pond and found new homes for all its locals. Once I'd cleared all the cr@p out of the pond I found out to my dismay that there is no lining to the pond, just clay. I've started to dig a drainage ditch going length ways across the pond and have started to fill the pond in with the soil that I've dug out already. The problem is that the soil that I throw into pond is turning into thick gloopy mud. What can I do to stop this turning into some sort of quick sand pit that Tarzan would have to come and pull you out of???

Image Insert:

922.13 KB

(I've tried to attach a picture of the garden. The pic is taken from the bottom of the garden and the pond is up at the top behind the dog. The hole you can see is where my brother and I have started to dig out)

Cheers and sorry its a long question

Don't worry about the long question. It's short compared to some of my ramblings on here.

Scott may be right about the spring or maybe all of the runoff from that slope is saturating the soil you're throwing in there. Has it been raining there lately?

In any event, if you're plan is to dig out that entire yard so that it slopes away from the photographer and throw all of that excavated soil behind a retaining wall, you'll also need to ensure that you've incorporated proper draining into the area behind/behind the wall to capture and divert the water that's going to inevitably still be trying to drain toward the house.

You've got your work cut out for you. Have you thought about paying a professional landscape/drainage architect just to design what needs to be done there so that you can do the work? Seems to me it would be worth the investment. Otherwise, you're going to end up with an even bigger pond a whole lot closer to the house.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[bwgan]

You are rigt, garden encompasses the whole area to the rear of the house!

The picture was stood at the patio area by the dinning room where there is about 3m of concrete then the excavation.

That is as far back as the excavation is going to go. I'm then going to build a 1m wall out of 6" soilds and then build a second wall out of limeston in front of it. I understand all the drainage asepcts of building a wall, land drainage pipe sloping downwards at the rear of the wall with small pipe coming through the wall. This will probably be directed into a storm drain. The mud collected will then be used to level out the garden, probably into two terraces.

The fence was put up by next door and I'm just waiting for a big storm for it to blow down and the hyena will escape and eat small children!

Its Britain, it always f-ing rains. I was digging last night and it was blue sky above me and it was raining!

I would love to pay someone to come and do it for me but money won't allow and with the addition of a baby in the next few months I don't think I'll ever see my cash card again!

[Les]

Often when you drain a clay lined pond and try to fill it with "normal" soils you have this problem. It seems the fines of the clay mix with the organic part of the added soil and make a mush for awhile. I had the problem when constructing my office garden and tulip beds. Clay is very difficult to work with once it is placed.

[Bill Kibbel]

Noswaith dda.

I'd guess that a pond without a liner has a continuous source of water (spring, leaking water main, bad septic system).

Pob lwc!

[Richard Moore]

Nice Bill! I'm presuming you looked that up? Welsh might as well be "Clicking Bushman" for all the sense it makes to your average English speaker and, I suspect, just as difficult to learn if you didn't grow up surrounded by it.

I'm guessing that "Bwgan" is actually the name of Paul's hyena...umm...Weimerana. At least half of them are named some derivitive of "ghost" because of the color.

[Bill Kibbel]

Sir Richard,

I spent a great deal of time there. I'm fascinated with Wales and the ancient language. When I read it, I can recognize some words. My editor is from Wales and we great each other in e-mails with Welsh phrases. I've been very, very slowly working on learning to speak it, but don't know what to do with all the phlem.

"Never ask for directions in Wales, Baldrick. You'll be washing spit out of your hair for a fortnight". -Blackadder

Mae fy hofrenfad yn llawn o lyswennod!