QUESTION ABOUT RAISED (just a little) SIDES

[j.w]

Nice job sissy and a lot of hard heavy work. We have sandy soil so no drainage problem but I wanted somewhere for the water from my greenhouse sink to drain out the wall of the gh and into the soil but didn't want it eroding a big hole in the soil so just sunk a big 30 gal plastic nursery pot w/ holes in the bottom into the ground and filled it w/ rocks and let the water drain into it. Solved that situation and looks fine too.

 

[sissy]

Ii wrapped mine in landscape fabric to keep fine silt from washing in and clogging the pipe up .Here we have red clay and it does not drain well at all .I have been digging holes in my yard here and there and filling the holes with manure and lime it helps sweeten the soil

 

[DrCase]

DRCASE -- I see we are neighbors. What part of AR?

Im in NE Arkansas

After many pond redos i raised my lower pond edge 10" and put a rocked dry creek carrying the over flow water from the pond & rain out my back gate through into the ally
I never have to worry about big rains anymore and it looks good too

 

[Mmathis]

SISSY -- I've done similar things in our yard. But the clay runs soooo deep. Once I get past the red, gooey stuff, there's all this gray squishy stuff (reminds me of a waterbed mattress). And you have to TIME the digging so precisely between too wet and too dry.

About French drains in general, don't they have to GO somewhere with the water run-off? How much do you have to slope? Not sure with the way our yard is, that we'd have any good place to discharge the water. About 8 years ago we excavated an area next to our back porch that we laid with paver stones. Porch stayed flooded with any decent rain. We dug way deeper than necessary (gosh, woulda made a great pond ) and filled it in with rock, broken bricks, etc., prior to doing the standard screed rock & sand under layment. Ever since, we never have a flooded porch. Guess that was our own version of a French drain, but assume more of a containment area. Whatever, it worked!

 

[addy1]

I dug down around 7 inches more or less on the up slope of parts of our stream and the pond. In some places, put the perforated drain hose (4 inch) in some places just put in gravel, covered it with dirt rocks etc. The horrendous rains we have had, have not washed into the pond, the water has gone around. The gravel pits, the drains pipes just direct the rain around the stream and pond, so it flows down the slope.

In arizona we dug a deep pit and put in 4 feet of gravel, covered with landscape fabric, then crushed granite. That has kept the rains from flooding the pond. The pond was placed at a lower end of our yard. A containment type container

 

[taherrmann4]

You don't need that much of a slope just enough to divert the water around your pond and not into or under it.

 

[addy1]

You don't need that much of a slope just enough to divert the water around your pond and not into or under it.

You are so right, there are a few places I have a inch slope that redirects the water. As long as the water does not make a mini stream on its way down the slope that one inch paths it around the pond. With the way I made the stream, I broke up any direct path of water down the hill.

The gavel and piping went into places where the water like to flow nice and hard down the hill.

 

[Mmathis]

Hmmmm..... Enough to think about for next couple of months.

We have some artificially raised beds (and same for low areas) that I want to flatten so can make the yard more level prior to pond construction. Will be sure to compact the soil well as we go. Hopefully with a little "drainage" help, will be able to get the sides up (raised a few extra inches) without having to do too much back-filling or other manipulating.