How Do I Get Rid Of Standing Water In My College Park Md Yard?

As the area’s #1 landscape design company, we field lots of questions from the clients we work with. Among the most frequently asked is the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my College Park MD yard?’

It’s easy to see where this question arises from. After all, nobody likes having pools of water in their yard that can often linger for days on end. Unfortunately, there are no quick and easy answers because there are so many different possible causes. In this article, we’ll discuss the most common of those, and the optimal solutions for each case.

Broadly speaking, there are two categories of issues to consider here. Those that are habit-based, arising from specific things you’re doing or not doing, and those that are design-based, which arise from specific characteristics or features of your property.

As you might expect, answering the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my College Park MD yard?’ tends to be easier and more straightforward when dealing with habit-based issues, so let’s take a look at those first.

The two most common habit-based issues are overwatering and issues relating to the design of homemade decorative planting beds.

Overwatering is the simplest issue to correct, and any time you see areas of standing water around your plants, the first thing you should try is watering them less. Odds are excellent that doing so will eliminate the problem.

The most common issue where homemade decorative planting beds are concerned is that the homeowners who build them often fail to build adequate drainage channels into their designs. This problem is compounded if the beds are built up against your house, because quite often, no consideration will be given to the downspouts connected to their rain gutters.

Any time it rains, these will wind up emptying into the decorative beds, and absent an adequate drainage channel, the water has nowhere to go, so it pools there. This is especially dangerous because when you’ve got water pooling right next to your house, it will invariably begin seeping into the foundation of your home, where it can cause considerable damage leading to expensive repair bills.

The answer to the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my College Park MD yard?’ in this instance is two-fold. First, make sure any decorative planting beds you create have an adequate drainage channel and second, angle your downspouts well away from those beds, so that the water isn’t draining into them.

Now, let’s talk about those trickier design-based issues. Here are the biggest and most common ones you’re likely to see:

Thatch

Thatch is the layer of organic material that sits just out of sight under your grass, resting atop your topsoil layer. Over time, this layer will become increasingly tightly woven and ultimately, the day will come when it’s so thick and so tightly woven that it’s all but impossible for water to filter past it to get to your topsoil layer where it can drain away.

In this instance, the answer to the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my College Park MD yard?’ involves removing the thatch layer and aerating your lawn. This requires the use of some specialized equipment but is a project that a committed do it yourselfer could handle on their own. If you’re not a DIYer, or you just don’t have the time to deal with it, we’re more than happy to assist.

Hardpan

Hardpan can be a manmade issue, created by moving heavy equipment over a section of your yard, or it can occur naturally. Basically, it’s a layer of soil beneath your topsoil that’s so compacted that it’s almost impossible for water to pass through it, which makes it quite similar to the thatch issue we described above.

In this case, the answer to the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my College Park MD yard?’ revolves around breaking up the hardpan. Unfortunately, that’s a much bigger job than removing the thatch layer and is beyond the capabilities of most DIYers.

Improper Grading

This is far and away the most serious of the design-based issues. If your properly wasn’t graded properly, or time has significantly changed the lay of your land, anytime it rains, water will collect in the lowest-lying areas on your property and will have no place to go.

While it’s possible to bring in heavy equipment and completely transform the lay of your land, changing the grading of your property, in most cases, the simpler and more cost-effective solution is to install a drainage system, most often a French drain. This will redirect the water away from that area and into a drainage ditch, a nearby pond, or the like.

In this instance, before you have the drain installed, it’s important to look into the future, especially if you have other landscaping you’d like to do on the property. The best way to do that is to create a Master Landscape Design document which captures all the landscaping initiatives you’d like to undertake, allowing you to prioritize them.

We can help you create the document, and armed with that information, we’ll be able to position the drain such that it accommodates the future landscaping plans you’ve got.

Whatever the case, and whatever your needs are where the landscaping on your property is concerned, we’ve got you covered. Call our office today.

How Do I Get Rid Of Standing Water In My Bowie Md Yard?

We get a lot of great questions from the clients we work with. One of the more common we hear is: ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my Bowie MD yard?’

It’s an excellent question, but one for which there’s no easy answer. Since the particulars of each situation and property are different, there are no cookie cutter solutions to be found. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at possible causes and solutions in the hopes of providing a comprehensive answer to the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my Bowie MD yard?’

Broadly speaking, standing water can be traced to one of two root causes. We’ll refer to these as habit-based and design-based issues.

Habit-based issues are, as the name indicates, things that you’re doing or not doing that may be contributing to the issue. For example, it may be the case that you’re simply watering your plants too much. If you’re giving them more water than they need, and more than the soil can absorb, it’s going to just sit there, creating an unsightly mess and providing a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Not good.

Fortunately, the solution here is simple, and the very first thing you should try is to simply water your plants a bit less and see if the issue goes away.

Another possibility here is that you’ve created a decorative raised bed but haven’t built in drainage channels to allow the water to escape. In that case, when you water the plants in the bed, the roots and the soil will soak up what they can, but the rest will just sit there.

The worst instance of an issue like this occurs if you’ve constructed a decorative bed next to your house, and the downspouts connected to your rain gutters are emptying into it. That’s going to virtually guarantee you’ll have standing water pooled right next to your house, which, if not addressed quickly, could cause serious damage to your foundation.

As we said though, in cases involving habit-based issues, answering the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my Bowie MD yard?’ tends to be simple and straightforward.

Design-based issues are significantly more of a challenge to address, but there are viable options in every case. We’ll cover those next. Here are the most common culprits:

Thatch

Thatch is the layer of organic debris that exists between the grass you can see and your topsoil.
When this layer gets too thick, it will prevent water from trickling down to your topsoil and draining away. If this is the root cause of your issue, answering the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my Bowie MD yard?’ is as simple as removing the thatch layer and aerating your lawn.

Hardpan

Hardpan is created when the layer of sub-soil that exists beneath your topsoil becomes incredibly compacted. This can occur naturally or be caused by the presence of heavy construction vehicles moving repeatedly over an area. The problem here is that hardpan is so tightly compacted that it’s virtually impossible for water to filter through it, which leads to the creation of pools of water on the surface above it.

If this is the root cause of your issue, answering the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my Bowie MD yard?’ is a bit more involved and requires the use of specialized equipment. Experienced do it yourselfers are likely to be able to get it done, but if it’s a bigger project than you’d care to undertake on your own, we’re happy to help.

Clay Soil Or Poor Grading Issues

We’re grouping these two together because the solution to both problems is the same. Soil quality and composition can vary widely from one property to the next, and even in different areas on the same property.

If you’ve got extremely dense soil or clay on one portion of your land, the water’s just not going to drain very well without help. The same is true if your land is improperly graded. While it’s certainly possible to bring in heavy equipment and radically alter the grading of your property, the easier solution in this case is to install some type of drainage system.

There are lots of possibilities here, but the most common solution is the deployment of a French drain, which can redirect the water to some other area such as a swale, a decorative pond, or a nearby stream or drainage ditch.

If this is the solution needed, it bears thinking about any other landscaping you may want to do in the future so that when the drain is installed, its position doesn’t run afoul of any future landscaping plans you might have.

The best way to do that is with the creation of a master landscaping design document, which we can help you create. It’s a document that captures and prioritizes all the landscaping initiatives you ultimately want to undertake. Building that document first will ensure proper placement of the drainage system we ultimately install.

As you can see then, resolving standing water issues is a lot more complex than first meets the eye, because there are so many possible causes to the problem. Whatever the case though, help is just a phone call away. Give our office a call, and we’ll identify the root cause for you, and propose a solution that will solve the issue once and for all.

How Do I Get Rid Of Standing Water In My Bethesda Md Yard?

We get lots of great landscaping-related questions from the clients we work with. One of the more common ones is this: ‘How do I get rid of standing water in my Bethesda MD yard?’

It’s much more than just an aesthetic issue. Pools of standing water reduce the amount of useable yard space you have, can be a breeding ground for mosquitoes, and in cases where the water is pooling quite close to your home, it can seep into and damage your foundation where it can cause significant damage.

Unfortunately, there are so many different possible causes that there’s no one quick and easy answer. In this piece, we’ll explore the issue more thoroughly, identify some of the more common causes, and fill you in on the solutions in each of those cases.

Before we do that, we’ll start by saying that generally speaking, standing water issues can be divided into two categories: Habit-based and Design-based.

Habit-based issues are issues that arise from things you’re doing or not doing on your property. Answering the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my Bethesda MD yard?’ in these cases is pretty straightforward. Make some basic changes to how you’re doing certain things and those types of issues go away.

Where habit-based issues are concerned, the two biggest ones we see are:

Simple Overwatering

This is one of the most common issues we see. If you’re giving your plants more water than they need, and more than the topsoil around the plants can absorb, the water is going to pool and collect until it has time to percolate down through the soil. In this case, the solution is to simply water less and the problem will go away on its own.

Decorative Planting Beds

Lots of people like to build decorative beds to plant their favorite herbs and flowers in. Unfortunately, many of these homemade designs don’t incorporate a sufficiently large drainage channel that will allow any excess water to escape the bed.

The problem is made worse in cases where the decorative beds are built right next to your house, and the downspouts connected to your rain gutters empty straight into the bed.

Here, the answer to the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my Bethesda MD yard?’ involves creating a more robust drainage channel so excess water has an easier route out of the bed, and to extend and redirect your downspouts to ensure that they’re not emptying into the bed itself.

Those are the easy issues. The design-based issues we’ll talk about next tend to be a bit trickier, but in every case, are still solvable problems. These issues arise because of characteristics that are specific to your piece of property. What you’re doing or not doing has no real bearing on them. Here are the most common things you’re likely to run into:

Hardpan

Hardpan can be either manmade, by the presence of heavy equipment passing over a given area, or it can be naturally occurring. It’s a condition where the layer of soil just beneath your topsoil becomes so compacted that it’s virtually impossible for water to filter through it.

In this case, the answer to the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my Bethesda MD yard?’ involves bringing in specialized equipment to break up the hardpan. It’s a big job, and something that all but the most committed do it yourselfers will probably want help with. If that sounds a bit daunting to you, we’ll be happy to take care of your hardpan issue for you!

Thatch

Thatch problems are similar to hardpan issues, but generally easier to resolve. Thatch is the layer of organic material that’s under your grass and resting atop the topsoil. Over time, the thatch layer can become highly compacted and so tightly interwoven that water has difficulty filtering down past it and into the soil.

Answering the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my Bethesda MD yard?’ involves removing the thatch layer and aerating the soil beneath it. While this requires the use of some specialized equipment, it’s generally easier to deal with than hardpan issues, and serious DIYers should be able to handle it on their own.

If, for whatever reason, you’d like to delegate the task, again, we’re more than happy to assist. As the top-rated landscape design company in the area, we’ve got the skills and experience to make short work of your drainage issue, whatever the root cause might be.

Don’t let standing water ruin the aesthetic of your lawn, reduce the amount of useable space you’ve got, and potentially cause serious, much more damaging problems. Help is just a phone call away.

We’ve built our reputation by exceeding the expectations of each and every client we serve, and we’d love to add you to our growing family of satisfied clients.

Whether you simply want to solve this one issue, or you’ve decided to start making your landscaping dreams come true, we can help. If you know you want to do some additional landscaping, but you’re struggling to come up with specific ideas, be sure to spend some time browsing the photos on our website.

Not only will this give you an opportunity to see the quality of the work we do for yourself, but you’ll also come away with tons of great landscaping ideas for your own property. When you’re ready to get started, just give us a call.