Standing water in the back yard, need advice (1 Viewer)

[Scott Leopold]

My father-in-law passed away a month ago, and since then, my wife and I have been helping my mother-in-law get everything in order. One thing that I'm trying to help her with is the back yard. It's really a mess, but we're making progress. One thing that I'm not sure how to handle is the standing water. They have very poor soil. It's mostly clay, and there's almost no runoff. After a decent rain, nothing gets absorbed and there's always several spots in the back yard with standing water. They also have a pond/bird bath, so they always end up with a terrible mosquito problem.

My first thought was to put in some plants that would help absorb the water. I went to Lowe's, but the guy in the nursery department was clueless. I then went to a local nursery and spent 30 minutes trying to get someone to help me without any luck. Does anyone here have any advice on what we could plant to help alleviate the problem, or anything else we could do to avoid the standing water?

 

[Keith Royer]

I am also very interested to hear about possible solutions to this problem. I have the exact same situation that is compounded by a sump pump that empties into the backyard. The sump pump goes off A LOT during the spring, and never the rest of the year. Most people in my subdivision have the sump discharge piped to sewers at the back of their yards, but the nearest sewer to my yard is one yard over.

Hope someone can help you Scott. I wish I could.

Keith

 

[BrettB]

Silica!



I wouldn't think planting anything would help. I would imagine that you're going to have grade the area so that it will run off or install piping.

 

[Scott Van Dyke]

About the only thing I can think of is a willow tree. These things drink the water like nobody's business. Not sure if you want a bunch of these in your backyard, though. They are a messy tree.

 

[aaron campbell]

I think drain tile is the only answer.

 

[TimDoss]

you could try this, I've had decent luck with it in
the past...
in the trouble areas, dig a large hole... cut a length
of drain pip to sit vertically in the hole, flush with the
lawn... fill the hole about half full of gravel and finish
filling with soil, replace the grass and top off the
drain pipe with a garden grate.
The idea being to just drain the standing water down
into the soil so it's not a problem.
Sort of like a small french drain. You should be able
to at least rid yourself of the standing water this way.

 

[Keith M.]

french drain or sand...

 

[Alex-C]

depending on how elaborate (read expensive) you want to solve this, you could (less $) put in what others have described: rock well/french drain, essentially utilizing the percolation area of the pipe and (hopefully) better draining soil that may or may not be underneath your clayey soil to (more $) putting in a drainage system (4" pvc pipes, nds drainage basins, etc) to direct the runoff to a place (street, stream, whatever) that will take the water elsewhere but there are many considerations to take into account.

Can you provide more info on the size and layout and surroundings of the property ?

 

[Chris]

Longterm, a good weeping willow will seriously drain water.. but you're talking a solution that's about 10 years away..

In the short term, a drain is not too difficult.. direct the runoff toward your curbs..

 

[Mike OConnell]

A river birch will also help - it sure did in our backyard, but yes, it would not be an immediate solution.

Mike