Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design 1 Aug 02, 2015 7:18 pm Our garden bed is approx 4 m wide and about 3 m deep. On the "high side" of the garden bed (so towards the driveway and house) for the first 2 m or so we have gazania's which have done very well in about 100 mm of soil on top of clay. On the "low side" (so the last 1 m to the council pathway) we have 8 Japanese Buxes. Facing the house, the slope is from right to left and from the house it slopes to the council pathway but its not very significant, yet enough to have water drain away from the house and to the left. The Buxes in the middle have struggled for 3 years now and haven't grown much and every winter go copper/brown. After much research and digging around and under the plants when its wet, we've established we have a drainage problem and I think we're about to make it worse ! After a heavy downpour, water pooled in the bed and lifting the soil around the Buxes, it was like a cement sludge. For the Buxes (looking at the house, 1 on the far left, 8 on the far right), I've removed 4 Buxes - all the copper/brown ones in positions 4,5,6,7. When I did this, I could see white roots up top but yellowy/brittle roots about 400 mm down where the clay is. What is really frustrating is that 1 and 2 is where all the water pools yet they have grown to the height we want the hedge to be ! 8 is just making bye but is showing signs of taking off this summer as it was with the others last Spring. We did transplant one earlier this year (a very sad brown one in position 6) into a large pot and its now green with new growth, so we will be giving the 4 we pulled up some TLC and lots of sun to dry them out a bit and expect them to recover come Spring and hopefully replant them before its gets too hot. So how to solve the problem ? While taking the 4 Buxes out, I had to dig right across as I discovered old bricks and rocks which probably stopped the plants from rooting well, but now I have a trough about 2.5 m long, 450 mm wide and 450 mm deep. Options I've considered: 1. Let the clay dry out and smash it fine and mix to a 50/50 of organic soil + chicken fertilizer and fill the trough. Will I just make this even worse come next winter as its a big bath tub ? 2. In addition to option 1, dig a channel at the left/lowest end of this trough and grade it to the far left with an Ag pipe and put a sump box for the water to collect and then manually empty this out after heavy rain ? 3. Tunnel under the council pathway at a depth that would allow water to drain out of the bed (Ag pipe to PVC pipe) to the council lawn ? Any other ideas ? I'd really like to get this Bux hedge completed this summer ! 2 5841 Hi HomeOne, I'm in the midst of landscaping a cat run down the side of my house, and the recent rains have me wondering if I need to install some sort of drainage. I've… 0 12274 I would find out how deep your clay base is and depending on the depth install a cut off drain which is more than a normal agi drain. Where the neighbouring walls is… 2 3147 |