Is your College Park MD property suffering from drainage and erosion control issues?  How do you know?  It’s an excellent question and one we get quite regularly from our customers, so we wanted to take a moment to post the answer here.  There are a number of common signs you’ve got drainage and erosion issues, including:

• Areas of your lawn that are soggy for days after a rain storm
• You get soil collected on your sidewalks, and driveway after it rains
• Pools of standing water on sidewalks, driveways, and patios
• Cracks in the foundation of your home, or in the walls of your basement (if you have one)
• Water seeping into your basement

While none of those are good, the last two are especially troublesome, and if left unchecked, could cost you thousands of dollars in the long run.

Fortunately, there are several good solutions to College Park MD drainage and erosion control issues, and we’ve got the experience to deal with yours, no matter how bad they might be.

The first step to fixing your problem will be pay you a visit at your property and assess the situation.  In some cases, where the problem is fairly mild, it’s possible to address it with well-placed ground cover.

There are tons of great options on that front, and broadly speaking they fall into three categories: Ferns, Colorful Creepers, and Shrubs.  In most cases, which one you pick comes down to personal preference and what aesthetic you prefer, but in some situations, the composition of your soil or other factors may make one plant species or type of ground cover a better fit.  We won’t know that for sure until we complete our assessment.

Sometimes, your College Park MD drainage and erosion control issues are severe enough that creative use of ground cover alone isn’t enough to get the job done.  That’s not a problem, there are other things we can do.  Of those other options, the most common is the construction of a retaining wall.

These work in two ways.  First, by providing a physical barrier that prevents the soil from moving down from the higher elevations on your property, and second, by serving as a redirect for water, guiding it away from your home.

While effective on their own, retaining walls are even better when used in conjunction with some type of drainage system that allows you more control over exactly where the water goes.  Again, we won’t know which of those is most appropriate until we complete our assessment.

Once we have, we can develop a detailed project plan, complete with a cost estimate so you’ll have a clear picture of what it would take to solve your problem once and for all.  Assuming you’re comfortable with everything, we can begin, and before you know it, your drainage and erosion issues will be a thing of the past!