Water Logged Border

[SP1965]

I have attached a couple of photos of one of my borders, as you can see it is waterlooged. What is the best thing I can do to make this better

[rustylady]

Has it always been like that, or is it recent?

[SP1965]

Well to be honest, we only moved into the house end May 2013. When it rains it does fill up quite quickly. I am just wondering if I should be digging certain things into the soil.

[Kristen]

Drains. Nothing else works to shift water. They are not hard to put in.

Trees that drink a lot is often offered as a solution - Willows and the like - but they take 20 years to grow to the size where they can make a difference.

Might be that there is a plough pan which is stopping water soaking away easily, you could dig to break that up.

If it is a new-build, or relatively so, then it might be the rubbish that builders just buried in the garden . That will all have to come out to fix the problem.

If the standing water after a really good downpour (the biggest of the big Thunderstorms for example ) is all gone in 20 minutes then you don't have a problem. Any heavy soil is going to get standing water after a winter of continuous rain for weeks on end, so that might be what you have after this past really wet winter (although: drains will fix that, e.g. if you want to grow plants that are going to object to waterlogged wet feet)

If you want to know about Drains or Plough pan please ask