AJH wrote:
On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:39:16 GMT, soup wrote:

I have an area of the garden that is prone to standing water, the soil
is "clay" so drainage is poor at the best of times. Was thinking of
digging a hole and placing pipe with holes in it (what's the proper name
for that?[weep pipe?])

Land drain? The pvc pipe we used was wavinflow


, covering it in pea gravel, then replacing soil
on top (discarding any soil that doesn't fit back down the hole due to
the pipe and the gravel). This hole/pipe will run from the "bloody" bit
the entire length of the garden. Can anyone foresee any obvious gotchas
or have alternate ways of doing things?

There are things called fin drains which look like a pipe with a
vertical fin, the fin is covered in geotextile to filter any soil out.

Apart from that what you describe is much what land drains were but
nowadays geotextile is used to stop the shingle and pipe silting up,
effectiveness depends on the soil type as fine silt will soon clog
land drains and clay soils don't connect well to them (in agriculture
a mole plough will be used to form runs into the gravel above the
pipe).

I think if there is enough shingle below the pipe, that will silt up
before the pipe does.

You may find that actually a bloody great hole backfilled with porous
rubble and suchlike, going deep enough may take you below clay level
anyway: when I was digging post holes here, I was intrigued to find the
sopping wet soil gave out about 3 foot down, below that I was running
into chalk and so on, and the subsoil was much drier. Our pond, which is
unlined, never fills up to the brim, no matter how much water goes in it..

In fact, we have solved a muddy bit of garden by the simple expedient of
slapping down a load of MOT and gravel, and heaping topsoil on it. It
raises the walkable grassy bit just enough so that the normal sheet of
water running over that part of the garden runs underneath it!

So waht iam sayingis that although a perforated pipe in a french drain
is really good at draining a specific small area, if there is somewhere
the water can run to, for a larger area, maybe all you want to do is
simply raise the level abut 4-6" with MOT type 1, of the chalky sort,
followed by gravel or sand, and push the topsoil back over it all.

On Sep 18, 11:18 pm, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
AJH wrote:
On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:39:16 GMT, soup wrote:

I have an area of the garden that is prone to standing water, the soil
is "clay" so drainage is poor at the best of times. Was thinking of
digging a hole and placing pipe with holes in it (what's the proper name
for that?[weep pipe?])

Land drain? The pvc pipe we used was wavinflow

, covering it in pea gravel, then replacing soil
on top (discarding any soil that doesn't fit back down the hole due to
the pipe and the gravel). This hole/pipe will run from the "bloody" bit
the entire length of the garden. Can anyone foresee any obvious gotchas
or have alternate ways of doing things?

There are things called fin drains which look like a pipe with a
vertical fin, the fin is covered in geotextile to filter any soil out.

Apart from that what you describe is much what land drains were but
nowadays geotextile is used to stop the shingle and pipe silting up,
effectiveness depends on the soil type as fine silt will soon clog
land drains and clay soils don't connect well to them (in agriculture
a mole plough will be used to form runs into the gravel above the
pipe).

I think if there is enough shingle below the pipe, that will silt up
before the pipe does.

You may find that actually a bloody great hole backfilled with porous
rubble and suchlike, going deep enough may take you below clay level
anyway: when I was digging post holes here, I was intrigued to find the
sopping wet soil gave out about 3 foot down, below that I was running
into chalk and so on, and the subsoil was much drier. Our pond, which is
unlined, never fills up to the brim, no matter how much water goes in it..

In fact, we have solved a muddy bit of garden by the simple expedient of
slapping down a load of MOT and gravel, and heaping topsoil on it. It
raises the walkable grassy bit just enough so that the normal sheet of
water running over that part of the garden runs underneath it!

So waht iam sayingis that although a perforated pipe in a french drain
is really good at draining a specific small area, if there is somewhere
the water can run to, for a larger area, maybe all you want to do is
simply raise the level abut 4-6" with MOT type 1, of the chalky sort,
followed by gravel or sand, and push the topsoil back over it all.

For this /particular/ application (curing a boggy lawn) MOT type 1 is
probably excessive. Also, provided the sand is a bit dirty grass will
grow pretty happily on it (no need for expensive top soil).