Question
I live in Brazoria county texas which has been inundated with rain this year. This area seems to have a problem with yard drainage maybe because there is so much clay in the soil. I have standing water in the back yard right now and the ground is very mushy. Would adding a layer of sand over the yard help with this. I would eventually like to put a garden shed in the back yard but am afraid that when the ground gets saturated it would start sinking. Right now the back half of my yard is so mushy I cant even mow it.

Answer
Hi Lee Mullen,

>>"...inundated with rain, ...standing water..."

If indeed your soil can be categorized as high in clay content, it should also not be categorize as 'mushy' or prone to having heavy things sink when placed on it.  A clay soil, even when water saturated, should be firm enough, but prone to a certain amount of water-pooling.  Sand can help a high-clay soil, but does nothing for soil fertility.  The best remedies for pooling is to figure-out some system to reduce or eliminate it.  Here as an article about this:
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ABOUT DRAINAGE FIXES

Drainage fixes for lawn pooling problems include:

01. Diverting and channeling rain water to maintain dryer areas.
02. Constructing various functional or static systems to
   temporarily collect volumes of excess water.
03. Engineering alternative landscaping scenarios that incorporate the
   water sources and excesses problems.
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[01].
Diverting the water.

 A drainage problem for an average sized house on an average sized lot can often be greatly remedied by the installation of rain-collecting guttering on the house itself.  If you already have guttering, check it out for its efficiency of construction-flow, leaks and clogging.  The house guttering can collect thousands of gallons and shunt it all to a proper drainage route or collection system.
(see below).

 If you have a particularly compacted-clay soil, you can have the lawn commercially aerated (or rent the machine to do it yourself).  This removes plugs of clayish top-soil and improves drainage temporarily. Depending upon your soil's physical characteristics, an aeration event may be very temporary, and with the first major rain the holes will be filled and there will  the same conditions as before the aeration procedure was done; a true-clayish soil should not revert very fast. With a compacted or high-clay soil, aeration may be practical.

 Adding sand to clay soils also helps it to drain.  These are ways to simply divert surface pooled water into the soil's air spaces.  Like cake or swiss-cheese, soils will have so much pocketed-air space where excess water can seep (or 'perk') into the root-zone so there is less visible or problematic top-side.  Anything you can think of to do to provide for these more perky or more granular-soil conditions should help the water pooling problem. Aerating a sandy soil may be futile.  Also, adding sand might help drainage....but it does nothing for soil fertility.

Other water-flow diversion strategies:
The term 'grade' in landscaping lingo refers to how much an area of land slopes or makes a single hill.  It can also just mean how 'non-flat' it can be in any way whatsoever. Bumps, dips, ravine,..etc. are all matters of terrain topology to consider in reference to the grading the land. Sometimes before a brand-new house is built on wild land, the builder will bring an a heavy-duty land 'grader-machine' to scrape the top-soil this-way and that, or to remove so much soil or fill-in with soil,...until the lot is ready for a foundation and the beginnings of a lawn.  It is at this time that the lot should be made more or less drainage proficient and the builder is usually under some contract or legal obligation to do so.  If your brand-new home has water-pooling problems in the lawn, you may want to see if the builder can help make-good on his workmanship. The builder may be more at fault than Mother Nature for some types of drainage problems.

 Sometimes the home-owner can raise the grade or create even a mild grade with "BERMS" (small man-made hills) and "CONTOURS" (sinuous or shaped berms).  These essentially act like small dams in the property.  They may need to be planted to also not wash away or be subject to erosion. To build a berm, you move the earth as you need it to do what you want. Very low berms can make for a single low place on the lawn, and this can help in pooling management.

Berms are often used in commercial landscapes for various reason. They can be very practical for large lots. In some residential neighborhoods using berms in your front lawn may not be appropriate or restricted by building codes.  If you use berms, be sure they can be easily mowed if planted with grasses.

If you manage to get so much of the excess water to some point where it is no longer a problem,... then you can sometimes construct under-ground systems (e.g., special gravel-packed ditches with perforated collection pipes, etc) to collect and re-direct water, and etc. (See below)

[02]
Constructing various functional or static systems to temporarily collect excess water.

[a] Simple Collectors:

Home-made "mini-ciserns":
 A less expensive remedy for excess water that is not such a great volume is to simply find the lowest point (or make one) where water mainly collects, and established PVC pipe-lined
SINK-HOLES or a CISTERN SYSTEM.

This is just a 'long as you can make it section of open-ended plastic pipe sunk into the ground to fill-up when it rains.  When they fill-up, so much water is removed from the lawn, and then the collected water slowly perks into the soil from the open bottom of the pipe.

Depending upon your soil-type, constructing these can be variously easy or difficult.  With a hard-clay soil, even digging a post-hole may be a formidable task.  Once, the lawn area has a hole-dug,...water that would normally pool on the yard, should go to the cylindrical tube-volume.  The most difficult part of making this type of rig is just digging the cylindrical hole for the pipe. A post-hole digger may be all that is needed, but a hard-clay soil can make it a chore.  Hire some help if needed. The pvc pipe should have a rim that rises a couple of inches or so above the grade and will not cause any problems for lawn-mowers. Place some gravel in the bottom of the pipe to help prevent a soil up-surge effect.  It should also have a piece of wire-mesh to cap-over it to keep critters from falling into the hole and any other accidents such as twisted ankles. These pipes will eventually sometimes fill-up with debris and need to be cleaned-out. This may become a seasonal maintenance event for these or any cistern system if they are not properly covered or sealed.

Estimate how many gallons collected would help, and go from there to decide on diameter and depth of the cylindrical collecting volume.  This set-up drains from the open, gravel-covered bottom of the pipe and can be as large as needed or practical (PVC Pipe of 6-10 inches diameter is often sufficient). If you can design-engineer your 'mini' PVC-pipe cistern system to also collect water near trees,... it will serve a dual purpose to help get water into the soil for the trees.

 If these collecting volumes drain too slowly after filling up after a big rain, you may need to install a submersible pump to divert the water up and out of the collection basin to an exit portal.

 This last fix, the sink-hole system, some homeowners could manage to construct themselves without too much expense or work; again, digging the holes is the hard part. A large diameter piece of PVC pipe and a post-hole digger are the main tools and parts you might need; the pipe opening should have a protective cover. Places like Walmart should have all the tools and supplies you might need.

[b]
More Elaborate Collection Strategies:

You may want to get estimates from contractors listed in your yellow-pages who deal in grading and flood-control problems.   Permits may be required for these types of jobs.


A variation of the 'mini-cisterns' discussed above is generally a system that is standard for the rural septic system's lateral-lines networks.  It is the mini-system turned ninety-degrees with extras.  A laterally perforated ('on-top of pipe-length' instead of verticle-open-ended) PVC pipe is installed in gravel-lined ditches and filled in with soil; the excess water seeps into the ditch-system and can either perk-seep or be channel elsewhere.  I find it helpful to also line the ditches with 'Weed-Barrier' before adding the gravel, or you can wrap the pipe itself with this material.  Doing this will help prevent tree-roots and debris from getting into the system, in which case, the home-owner may have to excavate everything periodically for maintenance which the weed-barrier could have prevented. Running Copper-Sulphate 'root-preventive' chemicals (for plumbing stoppages) through the system periodically, will also prevent some of the invasive tree-roots.

Such systems when properly installed can be nearly invisible after the lawn grows back and can do a great job of keeping the lawn and top soil properly hydrated and pooling-free.

Occasionally, you may have to use sump pumps to direct collected water to a drain portal.
This means that the excess water as it arrives or as it is collected can have a way off the property or to become variously stored in tanks and similar. Submersible water pumps may be needed for any of the water-holing remedies devised.

Note:
Submersible pumps come in several brands, power-ratings and price ranges.  Consider how much water you might need to PUMP OUT PER HOUR when shopping for these pumps. Also, a way to turn off the pump automatically may be needed since they will break-down if left to dry-pump.

To compute a cylindrical or tube-like volume use this mensuration formula:
(2)x(Pi)x(Radius x Radius)x [length or height of tube]= Cubic-Volume of tube (in radius, height the same units). Pi in this case can be considered three in these calculations.
One Gallon equals about 231 cubic inches.
A two-liter soda-pop plastic bottle holds about 122 cubic inches of fluid.



[03]
Alternative Landscaping Scenarios:
 Finally, some people have worked a Pond or Water-Garden or Goldfish-Koi pond into the landscape as a remedy for soggy yards.  Collecting and raising Koi and aquatic plants can be an enjoyable and profitable hobby for the biologist in the family. In dry times you may actually have to add water to these ponds to adjust for evaporation. Ponds can, however, become too much of a maintenance issue for some home-owners and if you are not the kind of individual who enjoys an fishing or an indoor aquarium, then it is probably not something for you to consider even though it could solve the soggy-yard syndrome in full or part.
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With a good fertile-loamy well draining top-soil, best quality hybrid grass type(s), 1-3 inches of water per week, plenty of sun-light, ...almost anyone can have an excellent lawn with a minimum maintenance effort.
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I Hope this has answered your question(s)!
Have a fantastic Summer!

Visit my Lawn & Gardens webpage for more Tips, Facts and Links:
http://hometown.aol.com/eilatlog/lawnol.html

Your Questions and Comments are welcome at ALLEXPERTS.com
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