Drainage - Act 2

 Hey y'all, and welcome back to my Toad Talk!   🐸

We are going to finish up our drainage talk this week.   Last week, we talked about keeping the water off the house.  This week, we are going to talk about flower bed and perimeter drainage.  

Your flowers beds and immediate perimeter need good drainage too!  The wicking and weeping power of water is amazing.  It always flows downhill, and travels the path of least resistance.    It's our job to make the path flow away from our home, and not under the house.  

We do this by making sure that our beds drain away from the home.  There are ways to do this, some that we touched on last week.   If your beds are hardscaped, just have weep holes for the water to drain, and when you are building your bed, let your mind follow the path of the water.  Think about where it's going to come from, and where it's going to go.

Remember - it takes the path of least resistance.   

If your beds are edged, there will be an "escape," or weep hole 2 ft apart at the bottom of the edging.  That drains the water away, as long as you have weep holes in the hardscape, or your mulched bed tilts somewhat downward.  The important thing for you to remember is the water has to be able to leave the beds to get to the weep holes in the edging.  

You should make sure the soil around your house has 2" fall, 5' outside the drip edge of your home.  What that means is that you need to allow the rainwater to flow downhill.   Starting at the drip edge, until you are about 5' out, slowly allow the soil to fall 2" lower than where it begins at your house.  That makes for proper drainage.   Now keep in mind that soil will also erode, so you'll need to keep an eye on it to make sure that erosion doesn't wash your soil away entirely. 

The moral of this story is, the further we get the water away, the less damage it can do.   Remember - the Grand Canyon all started by the flow of water.  

In closing - check out these beautiful examples of ways to drain water away from your home.  It's call "rainscaping," and you can do it any way you like.  All you need is a little imagination, and a good load of smooth river rock!

Till next time!