As the area’s top-rated landscape design company, we get lots of questions from the clients we serve about a variety of issues.  One of the more common questions we get is ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my Laurel MD yard?’

Standing water is more than just an eyesore.  If it’s close to your house, it can cause serious damage to your foundation, leading to staggering repair bills.

Even if it’s not, it can lead to members of your family constantly tracking mud into your house, creating an ongoing mess for you to clean up, to say nothing about the fact that it reduces the amount of useable space you’ve got to work with, or the fact that it’s a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

Unfortunately, there’s no one answer to the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my Laurel MD yard?’ because every situation is different.  Cookie cutter solutions just don’t work here.  Below, we’ll take a closer look at the possible causes of, and solutions to the issue of standing water.

Broadly speaking, standing water issues can be broken into two categories:  habit-based or design-based.

Habit-based issues are things you’re doing that contribute to the problem.  One of the most common issues here is overwatering your plants.  The first, simplest thing you can do is just try watering less and see if that takes care of the problem.

Another thing we see on a regular basis is that many times, people build decorative planting beds, but fail to build drainage channels which allow excess water to leave the bed.  If you overwater the plants in the beds, it’s going to pool and collect.

The problem can be particularly bad if you’ve built decorative beds around your home, especially if the downspouts connected to the rain gutters on your home are pouring into those beds.  That’s almost certain to create pools of standing water right next to your home, which, as we mentioned at the start, can cause serious damage to your foundation.

In both of those cases, the answer to the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my Laurel MD yard?’ is simple and straightforward.

Design-based drainage problems are caused by specific characteristics that exist on your property.  These tend to require more work to fix, but there are plenty of viable options.  We’ll outline the more common issues next.

Hardpan

Hardpan can occur naturally or be created by the presence of heavy machinery moving repeatedly over an area.  In a nutshell, hardpan is a layer of tightly packed sub-soil that sometimes exists beneath the topsoil on your property.

The problem is that hardpan is so tightly packed that it’s virtually impossible for water to seep through it.  In this case, the answer to the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my Laurel MD yard?’ is going to be fairly labor intensive, involving breaking up the hardpan, which requires specialized equipment.

It’s possible for experienced, committed do it yourselfers to handle an issue like this on their own, but most people seek professional assistance in dealing with hardpan, and it’s something our team has lots of experience with.  We’d be happy to help!

Thatch

Thatch is the layer of organic material that exists between the grass you see on the surface of your yard and the topsoil beneath it.  Over time, this layer can become tightly packed and highly interwoven, creating the same basic issues you see when dealing with hardpan.

In this instance though, the answer to the question ‘how do I get rid of standing water in my Laurel MD yard?’ is much simpler than it is with hardpan.  Getting rid of the thatch layer is fairly easy, and that, coupled with aerating your yard should make the problem vanish.

The Presence Of Clay

Soil conditions are highly variable.  It’s entirely possible that even on the same piece of property, you’ll find very different soil compositions in close proximity to one another.  If a portion of your property contains a high concentration of clay, then water in that area isn’t going to drain well without help.  In this case, the solution is a bit more involved, and we’ll cover it after we talk about the next root cause, because the solution for this item and the next one is the same.

Improper Grading

Water, being water, flows downhill and seeks the path of least resistance.  If you’ve got low lying areas on your property, you can bet that no matter what the composition of the soil is in that area, you’re almost certain to have standing water in that area.

You can bring in lots of heavy equipment and radically alter the grading of your property, but the simpler solution is to install a drainage system that will direct the water away from that area, and into a swale, a nearby stream or drainage ditch, or perhaps even a decorative pond.

The installation of a French drain is the most common solution to this type of issue, and issues where you’ve got areas with high concentrations of clay.

While this is technically something that a committed DIYer can do, most people prefer to have help.  Again, this is something our company is frequently called upon to do.

Whatever is ultimately causing your standing water issue, help is just a phone call away.  Give our office a call today, and we’ll help you get to the bottom of the issue, and recommend the most appropriate and effective solution.