Hi guys! I hope all has been well with everyone. We've been very busy with non-fig related items so I haven't been on much lately. But I'm having a problem with my yard and I'm not sure how to approach it - maybe you all have experience you can share with me.

We moved last summer to a house with a bit of land but once it rained a bit we realized we had a little bit of a soggy problem. Turns out they had brought in a bunch of sandy soil to level out the back yard. But the water isn't draining well so when it rains a bit about half the yard is a sandy bog. It's slowly killing a large cedar tree because it is now recessed by about 12-16" so we need to address that, too. 

We have about 1 acre in the back that is fenced and this affects about 1/3 of that acre. This was also where I was planning on planting an orchard. A landscape company recommended we treat the moss and try to encourage healthy grass growth to soak up the water, and with the fruit trees just dig a really big hole and fill it with better soil to allow the fruit trees to thrive and not drown from water overload.

I have a video I took today of my puppy digging (oh, did I mention we got another puppy?) in the sandy muck around my cherry tree I planted last fall but it gets the point across with the soil. As I pan out you can also see the cedar that is recessed into the ground. It's just a mucky mess. Can I hire someone to scrape out all this sand and start fresh? Is that something people do? Or should I just stick with what the landscape guy recommends? Another interesting note - the moss is taking over in an area that gets lots of sun. The other half of my yard that is well draining has a bit more shade and lots of healthy grass. No moss.

Can't you install something that is called "french drainage".
Google "french drainage" for many examples like http://landscaping.about.com/cs/lazylandscaping/ht/French_drains.htm

with that much water a french drain is probably the best way to go. But even with that it may be too soggy for fruit trees planted the normal way as fruit trees DO NOT like wet feet. I would go with a french drain AND plant my trees on raise mounts or raised ridges. Mounds or ridges that are as little as 24 inches high should do a world of good. I will probably have to do the same thing once I run out of room on the high side of my yard.

Nichole, I feel your pain.  We purchased a large piece of property in zone 5b a little over a year and a half ago and found a water issue.  The water is coming from natural springs that bubble up through the earth.  It effects a large area, probably about 3 acres in all, and really makes the property a big mud mess in the winter and spring.  

We had an excavating contractor take a look at the problem a few weeks ago.  He suggested three fixes.  The first and least expensive is to build swale drainage.  Basically making a ditch that conforms to the natural slope of the property to drain the water off.  The second which is moderately expensive is to dig trenches and install drainage pipe on top of stone in the problem area, then drain the water off to the edge of the property or wherever I like.  The third and most expensive is to build a pond.  

We don't want to build a swale because like you, we want to use the land for planting.  A pond wouldn't work for us right now.  We're probably going to install drainage to move the water.  I have some ideas to use the water for irrigation, but that's another story.  

Where is your water coming from?  Was the sandy soil brought in because of a pre-existing water issue?

Is it possible to build up a raised bed (or even a row of berms) above the ground high enough to keep the root crown from staying soggy--maybe backfill with quarried stone for drainage?

edit: http://www.sdedible.org/stone-fruit-care.html

The water is coming from the rain. It's interesting to me because half the yard is well draining and half the yard is not. The part of the yard that is well draining has heathy grass growing despite being heavier in shade. The other half has lots of moss and the water is saturating the sandy soil. I think it was added to make it more level - the whole acre is mostly cleared and mostly level, making for a nice back yard, except for this drainage issue.

I have a nice little discussion happening on facebook and my neighbor mentioned glacial till being a problem in some areas. I have no idea if that is what is going on here, but they live very close to me and they have it in parts of their property. The current recommendation is to hire someone with a large tiller to work the sand into the loamy soil below (and crossing fingers it's not glacial till) and adding some soil amendment to it while we're at it. They don't seem to think a french drain will work for a few reasons but maybe they are wrong.

Building raised beds for the fruit trees is possible if we can't fix the problem. Not ideal but we could make it work.

Is the part that is well draining higher than the rest?

we have rather soggy yard, front and back. we put french ditch in sometime ago. doesn't help. it's red clay and they don't drain well at all. grass rarely grow too well unless they are babied and i don't care too much for the grass. just keep the weeds short last few yrs.. then we had an idea to hire lawn service to see if we can make it look better and now since the weeds are gone, it looks bare. 

Pete - Did you pay an installer or do it yourself?

Nichole, if that water is sitting in the middle of the yard (and not draining away due to the yard being level) then there is a problem with something under the surface affecting permeability.  It can be a rock layer, clay, compacted earth due to some prior usage.  If there is a lower area just adjacent to the soggy yard, french drains of some variation should help.  It might take a couple of or a series of drain lines through the area leading away to the lower elevation to accomplish it depending on the soil permeability. 

I don't live in a glaciated area and am not an expert on glacial soils, but 'glacial till' just means material moved by glaciers in the past.  Sometimes that is rock, dirt, sand etc but it could mean very fine silt that was laid down as part of the outwash from a glacier, and that can be poorly draining.

Nichole, I'm sorry to read this!  I know how much you wanted acreage, just like us, and we've been her a full year with no issues, but that soggy bog sounds nasty!  I really hope you can find a fix!  I'm going to keep an eye on this thread with my fingers crossed for you!

Suzi

we had a similiar problem with both rain and spring-fed boggy areas and had an excavator dig a 6 ft deep 3ft wide trench  to a low area and fill with irregular fist sized rocks.  It drains like a champ now!  ie a French drain

Hi,
You need to find some informations :
What height of ground/dirt was put on top of the previous ground ?
Where does that water come from ? Does it come from a neighbor field, your field ? "Left side" to "right side" ?
Do you have an opportunity ( road passing in front ? ) to send that water else where ?
You could then send the water away with a trench before the water gets to the other side that is getting soggy .

If the up-layer is less than a half of a meter, you could try to mix the upper layer with the layer under it.

When I got my garden, I did put some fertilizer and all of a sudden came the rain ... and a small river took all my fertilizer to my neighbor's garden ... Kind of pissed !
I then understood the dirt was too compact and there was a little slope so I made everything to correct that .
Since I work the ground with my shovel every year, I did turn the ground towards down the "hill"  to make the garden more plane and the dirt less solid.
Since then I no longer get that "hill" effect.
So uncompacting the ground with a shovel and digging one or two trenches ... would be the less expensive to do ...

I'm having trouble understanding why having sandy soil would be a problem since it would be very permeable to water.  As someone mentioned upthread it does sound like there is a permeability issue below the sandy soil.  It seems like trucking in some soil to make berms where you want your trees to be and installing drainage lines in the low areas between the berms might be the way the to go.  It sounds like the drainage lines could exit where the ground drops in elevation.  I lived in Oregon for a few years and and am familiar with the rain in your part of the world - good luck!

A swale/ditch doesn't have to be ugly or need a moat to cross:
http://blade-runners.com/blog/2009/11/12/hunters-green-cluster-case-study/

I'd tie it into the houses roof drainage, which may be adding to the problem. Hard to tell from the video. If you do not have a portable gps that shows elevation, try google earth and zoom in to your backyard, then move the cursor around to various points to compare elevation. Hopefully the entire yard has a shallow slope toward a common border. Use the soil from the ditch to backfill around the cedar to above surrounding ground level with a gap between the back fill and bark. Doesn't look like you need a lop sided swale where the swale runs 90 degrees to the slope and has a lump on the down hill side. Much better to run the ditch down hill obviously.

We have used Pet finder http://www.petfinder.com/ a few times over the years. Here is our new addition Millie on the left. Aussie cattle dog mix and into everything:
 

I don't have any familiarity with the property prior to purchase and I wouldn't trust the previous owner if I were to contact them. We found a second septic tank in the back yard, further away from the house, and I asked him point blank what it was and he shrugged and said he didn't know. We brought a friend over and he helped us get into it and discovered it's a septic tank that hasn't been used in some time, but looks new-ish. RV dump perhaps? Who knows? But he felt the need to lie to us (I don't believe him for a New York minute that he didn't know what it was). Plus there's some bad blood over the roof. If I talked to him I might punch him in the nose through the phone.

Rewton I don't think the sandy soil itself is a problem for the water - it just presents itself to me as a soggy soppy mess which to me tells me something is amiss underneith it. It shouldn't be so water logged. Plus I dislike the sand anyway because it doesn't look that great for planting trees. I think regardless I should have some soil amendment added into it.

The neighbor who talked of glacial till said it's hard as concrete and their tractor has a hard time tilling it at all. It was about two feet under normal appearing soil.

I think I just need to keep asking different landscape people out to my house. I plan on being here a long time so it will do us good to find a more permanent solution. French drains, tilling the soil, maybe all of the above.

gofigure - your pups are cute :)

Nichole, your property and puppies are beautiful.  I'm sure everything will work out for you.

I had someone come out to talk drainage. He thinks the main problem is the hard pan and there isn't enough top soil on top of it to absorb it so what's there gets saturated and soggy. He thinks the best thing to do is bring in more well draining top soil on top of what's there, plus dig 4-5 french drain like ditches (a french drain without the actual pipe) to drain away the excess to a low spot outside of the fenced yard. The price tag for this is hefty and painful as our back yard is quite large. On the other hand, we're planning on being here for a long time and I will be enjoying this land for years to come. 

So now I have to figure out the order of importance on what to update first - home, roof, or yard. Time to work on the budget.

I'm not sure we can dig 2-3 feet down without some serious work. He sampled the yard in various places and found hardpan at varying depths but much of it was fairly shallow below the grass. It would take some serious equipment to dig that kind of trench. Before he started sampling he was toying with the idea of tilling in some well draining top soil into the soil below but after the samples decided adding depth was our best choice.

But we also need a new roof. So we shall see how we work this out.