Share 8 Ways to Prevent Garden Flooding When it Rains
A well-kept garden is a wonderful addition to any home, giving you extra space to relax, unwind and indulge your horticultural passions. However, when the heavens open – which they often do in the UK – it can turn your outside haven into a bit of a quagmire. But there's plenty you can do to help prevent your garden flooding when the rain comes. Read on to find out how.
Topics
Excess Water Caused By Poor Drainage
How Can You Prevent Your Garden Flooding?
- Harvest Rainwater
- Create a Seasonal Pond
- Plant Some Trees
- Use Raised Beds
- Use Grass or Gravel Support Mats
- Include Leafier Plants in Your Garden
- Keep Your Lawn Well-Maintained
- Use a Dedicated Drainage System
Introduction
Excess surface water in your garden can be destructive, damaging your plant beds, lawn, garden ornaments and hardware, not to mention getting your feet wet.
Too much rain water will lead to saturated soil, creating havoc in your garden. There are a number of reasons this can happen. So, for all of you out there with gardens that are prone to floods or waterlogged soil, this article examines some practical ways that you can avoid garden flooding.
What Causes Saturated Soil?
The first and most obvious reason for soil saturation is heavy rain – something that gardens in Britain are well accustomed to. There are an incredible 172 rainy days annually in Britain, which equates to just under 50% of the entire year.
Saturation happens when soil gets so wet it can’t absorb any more moisture, so water begins to rise up to the surface causing flooding in the form of boggy ground or even standing water.
Excess Water Caused by Poor Drainage
Another reason why too much water can accumulate in your garden is poor garden drainage. If your garden drainage system isn't effective, it can prevent good water flow and result in rainwater hanging around.
This can happen when your drains or gutters get blocked, or simply when the rainfall is so prolonged and heavy that it becomes more difficult to disperse it in the usual way.
You can find out more about how to unblock garden drains in this dedicated article: How to Unblock Outside Drain Grates and Pipes.
A Flooded Garden Caused by Clay Soil
You could also see your garden flooding more regularly than others if your soil is clay-heavy. This type of soil is denser and less permeable, meaning that it is unable to absorb as much water, resulting in slower drainage.
The same can happen when you have hard surfaces in your garden like concrete or compacted soil become denser due higher levels of foot traffic. Either way, water can't permeate the soil in the way it needs to in order to drain properly.
Over Watering Your Garden
When you're watering your lawn, herb garden or flower beds, it's important that you don't overdo it. It's very easy if you're not careful to over water which can contribute to flooding problems if soil to already wet during a heavy downpour, resulting in overflowing drains and then naturally, your garden floods.
The time of year and type of plants and grass you have will often dictate the right amount and frequency for watering, but typically you should do so for now longer than 20-30 minutes at a time, a couple of times a week.
How Can You Prevent Your Garden Flooding?
Garden flooding can be nightmare for the health of your lawn and your plants, as excess water fills the spaces in the soil and starves them of their oxygen supply, killing them through suffocation or rotting roots. So, how can you prevent it?
There are a variety of things you can do to avoid garden flooding. Let’s explore the techniques that will improve your garden drainage and allow it to cope with heavy and persistent rainfall.
1. Harvest Rainwater
A great way to prevent flooding in your garden is to catch surplus water that flows from your roofs, gutters and other surfaces into storage, such as a water butt. This serves to significantly reduce runoff and it gives you a free natural source to water you plants when they need it.
2. Create a Seasonal Pond
How about dealing with heavy rainfall each year by creating a seasonal pond? By digging a shallow depression in your garden and placing a pond liner inside, you create a low area that naturally collects water.
As well as preventing standing water, you'll also provide a habitat for birds and amphibians and help the natural environment.
3. Plant Some Trees
Another effective way to improve your garden's drainage system is planting trees. Trees allow water flow to penetrate to a deeper under ground level via root channels.
Trees also absorb a lot of water, helping to prevent surface flooding. Tree roots can also prevent soil from becoming compacted, and their leaf canopies intercept water headed for the ground, reducing the possibility of garden saturation and fooding.
4. Use Raised Beds
There are many aesthetic qualities on offer when you install raised plant beds in your garden. However, a nice side-benefit is that they also help you avoid the damage that comes with a flooded garden. They allow water to flow away from plant roots, preventing water building up in the bed soil and also reducing the risk of plant damage.
5. Use Grass or Gravel Support Mats
A permeable surface that allows for better drainage can be created through the use of gravel support mats, which are typically comprised of a plastic grid that holds gravel or supports lawn grass.
Support mats help stop gravelled areas from dispersing and they distribute lawn soil more evenly, preventing it from compacting – both improving gravel and lawn water drainage.
6. Include Leafier Plants in Your Garden
If you're a green-fingered person who loves buying new plants, you could use this passion to help prevent standing water.
By investing in leafy plants and shrubs for you garden, you'll help to stop rainwater reaching your soil – much in the same way you would when using trees. Hydrangeas are great for this purpose, as are boxwood and hosta plants
7. Keep Your Lawn Well-Maintained
When you regularly mow your lawn to keep the grass at the right length, you encourage healthy root growth, which boosts your soils ability to cope with rain water.
Additionally, by aerating your lawn, you create channels for water to fill, thereby preventing soil saturation and pooling on the surface. Tending to your grass and removing excess organic matter and dead grass will also help the drainage process.
8. Use a Dedicated Drainage System
A proven, proactive way to stop your garden flooding involves installing a recognised draining system yourself or getting a professional to come in and install it for you. You could be talking about soak aways, channel drains, catch basins or French drains that use gravel, pipes and channels to drain stormwater away from your lawn, flower beds and paved or concrete areas.
These drainage methods are more involved, labour intensive and expensive, but are worth considering in your garden is particularly prone to flooding.
Final Thoughts
While the UK these days gets frequent weather warnings for heavy rain, there's no reason why you can't avoid a flooded garden with the right approach.
By harvesting rainwater, using proven drainage methods, raised beds, gravel support mats and generally looking after your lawn, you'll be able to prevent your garden flooding when it rains.
We hope that you found this article useful and that it leads you to having a more stable and enjoyable garden without the misery of regular flood water.
For more helpful how-to DIY guides and home renovation inspiration, visit the Hiatt Hardware Blog.
