Houston, we have a problem, and for some reason, it seems to be located all over the brown sea you call your backyard. With streams of thick brown gunk overtaking your once green grass, it’s clear that your lawn needs some help battling its watery foe, and you’re eager to lend a hand.
What can you do to help the marsh that is erupting behind your house, other than swimming to its melting centre?
Don’t worry, though, as a muddy back yard can cause serious problems for many homeowners. You’ve done everything within reason to create a landscape you take pride in, but amid the revelry, you have encountered an insidious muddy mess.
Nothing can rain on your parade quite like, well, rain — or an irrigation system if you ignore the contours of your landscape
Despite all your efforts at creating an ideal scene around your house, every time water saturates the turf, you wind up with a soggy, muddy mess.
Why is your yard muddy and full of water? What can you do to alleviate this dreadful situation in your garden or lawn? Fortunately, there are always solutions to the problems that a muddy yard creates.
You can read on to find out the best ways to address the problems a muddy yard causes and how you can help your grass and other plants.
Why do yards hold water?
Natural precipitation is the most obvious answer. It is highly probable that you will experience heavy rains from thunderstorms or torrential downpours at any time during the year. Mother nature doesn’t use flow controllers like your irrigation system.
When faced with this issue, it’s important not to panic. Before you panic and run out to fix your muddy yard, read on.
The amount of water that your garden and lawn receives from the rain is significantly more than what your ground needs. You should expect that your lawn will take longer to dry out and drain properly after prolonged, heavy rains.
Do not be alarmed if it doesn’t drain quickly. You shouldn’t consider these circumstances an emergency unless the water remains standing long after a normal drainage period. You should investigate the problem more closely if this happens.
These are the most common reasons why your garden isn’t draining correctly.
Bad Elevation
Have you noticed that water collects and stands around the foundation outside of your house? Poor elevation is the most common reason for poor drainage.
Poor elevation is the leading cause of drainage problems for homeowners today. If it is not addressed, it can cause damage to your floors and drywall. It could even cause damage to your entire house’s foundation.
Landscape Design
If you decided to hastily throw together a quick landscape design without understanding the natural order of the ground around your house, then you may have unknowingly created a drainage issue that you will have to fix.
You’ll notice that no matter how much or how little you water your plants, water will pool up around them without fail. You might have stopped the water from flowing over the ground by randomly placing your flower beds. You have stopped the water flowing in the right direction it is supposed to flow by accident.
Impeding this natural flow causes the water to pool in and around your plants’ beds. If you don’t do something to restore the natural flow of water in your backyard, this standing water could cause damage to your plants.
Water Traps
You may have noticed that water is pooling inexplicably in random areas throughout your muddy backyard. The ground is not properly graded and causes drainage problems in your backyard.
If you have difficulty understanding this concept, think about potholes on a road. These “potholes” in your backyard fill with water and will create an environment like a swamp or marsh around your house.
These areas will eventually kill any plant life that you have tried to grow.
Paved Concrete Surfaces
If your concrete or hardscaped surface was installed incorrectly, it can also be an area of your property where water will not drain.
Concrete surfaces, such as driveways, can become soggy because they were not properly graded. It is very unfortunate that this is the only solution.
It is important to grade the surface on which you plan to place temporary materials, such as bricks, stones, gravel, gravel, and mulch.
Gutter Downspouts
Properly maintained and cleaned, a gutter system covering the drip edges of the roof of your home is a wonderful investment. If you don’t clean your gutters regularly, the downspouts can become blocked, which could cause water to overflow into the gutter trough. The gutter channel will eventually fill up and spill into your yard.
Overflowing gutters can cause water to pool in a certain area, wash away soil and ground, and then collect on top of plants.
Gutter problems can also be double-edged despite the many benefits they offer.
It doesn’t matter how well you maintain your gutter system. The areas where the rainwater is deposited into your yard could be a problem.
The location of the downspouts may cause large amounts to be poured onto an important area in your yard. These could be areas such as your entryway, flower beds, or vulnerable areas of grass that might not drain well.
Soil Compaction
Soil compaction occurs when the ground in your yard is used heavily for work or play. When the spaces between soil particles are greatly diminished and water has nowhere else to go, the soil is considered compacted. It results in a wet, soggy and muddy yard.
The soil consistency in your yard will determine the extent of soil compaction. Your chances of compaction are low if your soil contains a high proportion of sand.
Compaction rates may be higher if your ground is clayey or loamy.
Thatch in Your Lawn
Thatch is organic debris on your yard that makes its home in the area between the green vegetation on the top and the dirt’s surface below. These organic materials include grass clippings as well as stems and shoots, leaves and roots.
To allow your lawn’s water to drain properly, it must absorb into the ground. This can be made more difficult by the buildup of organic matter.
Instead of water being absorbed into the soil, it will pool and form a muddy yard.
Hardpan
The consistency and compaction of the topsoil are not the only items to consider when looking at the earth beneath your feet. The subsoil immediately below the topsoil must be considered.
Hardpan is a dense and thick subsoil which is virtually impervious for water. Hardpan can form naturally, or accidentally under the wheels of construction vehicles.
Hardpan can be found just a few inches below the topsoil. This is a problem for drainage in your yard.
The hardpan layer should be a few inches below the topsoil. If it is less than that, water can soak through the topsoil layer and pool on top.
Water Table is too High
One reason people still dig wells today is because the earth is saturated with water deep under the ground. This saturation depth is called the water table.
Some spots have a deeper water table than others. It may be more difficult for water to drain if it is too close to the ground.
6 Tips for Fixing a Muddy Lawn
Now that you know the primary reasons why your yard becomes inundated with mud and water, let’s consider a few different solutions that will fix a muddy yard. Solutions These solutions have been proven successful time after time.
These muddy yard solutions include:
1. Extend Gutter Downspouts
This is an easy fix if you have found that water is pooling near your home’s foundation.
Often, your gutter system will deposit rainwater at the foundation’s corners. You may have problems with your ground’s grading if you find these areas filled with mud or water. You can divert rainwater away your home’s foundation by adding extensions to your downspouts.
The installation of a catch basin is another quick solution, regardless of whether or not you decide to extend your downspouts. Both of these solutions are necessary to solve drainage problems in your yard.
2. Install a French Drain
When you begin considering how to fix the problem of standing water in your muddy yard, you have no doubt run across the term “French drain.”
A French drain is a flexible plastic drainpipe that is placed underneath your lawn to help channel water away. Before you can install it, you need to identify where water pools in your yard.
Dig a trench with a shovel that allows water to drain faster. Once the trench has been dug, cover it with pea sand.
Take your French drain — if you use a standard landscape drainpipe, you need to perforate it with holes — and wrap it in landscape fabric. You should cover the pipe with landscape fabric.
You should wrap the pipe and place it on top the pea gravel. Cover the pipe with more pea gravel. Pea gravel is added to increase the flow of water through the pipe and allow it to drain.
A French drain is the most basic and common way to prevent water from standing on the grass.
3. Check Your Grade
Your yard may experience pooling due to the common issue of improper grading.
To encourage water to flow away, your lawn should slope slightly away from your home. To quickly assess the lawn’s grade, you can use a yardstick or a tape measure.
The tape measure should be held by someone (if you don’t have someone, you can use the screwdriver to attach the tape measure to the soil). This is where the soil meets the foundation. Then use the tape measure to measure 10′ away from the foundation. While holding the tape measure level, place the yardstick on top of the turf at the 10′ mark.
Ideally, you should see that your mark is at least 6″ lower than your foundation. If it is not 6″ or more, you need to correct the grade of your yard.
Mulch can be used to improve the grade of your yard. The mulch will add height near your house’s foundation so that it slopes at a greater angle. Mulch will also absorb excess water and hold it in place, which is beneficial for plants in flower beds.
4. Create a Creek Bed
Using this tactic can add an aesthetic touch that is also a functional solution to a muddy yard.
First, create a shallow drainage ditch called a “swale”. Next, line the swale using rocks to define its form. You can also use the rocks to protect against erosion or run-off. Mulch can be used to make banks for the creek bed.
This solution can also be used to beautify your property, even if it is not dry.
5. Create a Rain Garden
If you choose to create a creek bed, you could also install a rain garden for the water you have diverted with the creek bed to flow into.
It is an area in your yard which is intended to capture rainwater. It is also filled with plants that can tolerate excessive moisture. You should do your research to find the best plants.
While this solution doesn’t fix a muddy yard problem, it does look better than just having a muddy yardDig a Dry Well
6. Dig a Dry Well
If you don’t have the time or the inclination to build a rain garden, you can dig a dry well.
Dry wells create a place for run-off to flow and then soak back into soil. The rocks from the creek bed should be arranged so that they flow into the well, and then absorb into soil below the ground. This will prevent water from pooling on top of the turf.
