Taken from Eclectic Gardener @ www.teachinggarden.org
Written by Alan Hickman

As the days draw in and the skies go grey and the winds grow chill, most people's thoughts don't usually turn to drainage. Be that as it may, a little attention now to how water enters and leaves a property can save a lot of headaches later when everything has frozen solid.

As soon as the neighbourhood trees have shed their leaves, everyone with a single-storey house should check that the eavestroughs and downspouts are clear of debris. One of the few uses for pistol-grip hose-end squirters is to blast away the accumulation of grit from roof shingles and bits of twig and leafage. Unless they are close to very tall trees, two storey and higher buildings seem to have less of a problem with rubbish buildup; perhaps they are above the flight path of most of the leaves that are blowing around.

Where the water goes after it is out of the eavestroughs can be the cause of a lot of trouble.If a basement is wet, then two conditions must pertain. First, the walls or floor are not watertight and, second, there is too much water laying outside. Fix either one and the basement will likely stay dry; and, usually, it is much easier and cheaper to keep excess water away from the building than it is to waterproof the underground structure.

So that general rainfall and snow-melt trends away from the structure, the surface of all flowerbeds, and hard surfaces like patios, walkways and driveways, should slope away from a building's walls for a distance of at least three or four feet. The slope doesn't have to be much. A half-inch in four feet across a path wouldn't be noticeable to walk on but it would prevent
water puddling on the high side.

Downspouts need to extend as far away from a structure's walls as is practical and they should discharge onto some sort of hard surface that will break the force of the flow and prevent erosion.

To help prevent icing, downspouts and their extensions should be mounted on the sunny south-facing sides of buildings, but this is not always practical. If long extensions tend to freeze solid, then an open trough may be the answer.

On a nineteenth-century mansion, where a downspout was in the permanently-shaded inside corner of an extended bay, a fourteen-foot long shallow wooden channel, that projected clear of the building to a pathway, cured a years' old problem of water trickling through the stone-and-mortar basement wall.

Having got rain and snow-melt away from the immediate vicinity of the house, the more general question of area drainage needs to be considered.

Sub-divisions are graded to ensure that surface water moves evenly downhill to discharge, via swales, ditches and catch-basins, into local creeks and rivers. Individual owners may not change the grade of a lot in any way that blocks the drainage of water from an adjoining lot nor may they increase or concentrate the flow onto an adjoining lot.

A cause of dispute can result from people building up a flowerbed along the fence on the high side of a lot. Beds are usually built during the late spring, when soil is open and absorbent and when there is plenty of sub-surface drainage, so initially everything seems fine. Come the following spring thaw, when the ground is frozen and impermeable, meltwater backs up against the effective dam and part or all of the abutting lot floods.

If someone is foolish enough to block the flow on the down side of his own lot and inundates his own garden noone else is likely to complain - unless, of course, he decides to dig a ditch to the fence and channels the flood next door.

Although lot grading and drainage seldom get a mention in popular gardening books, and I don't recall ever reading a newspaper column on the subject, the management of surface water in a garden is serious business. If a landscaping project causes damage or inconvenience to an adjacent property, then the perpetrator may be open to civil liability and well as to action resulting from breach of municipal bylaws.

Having in mind that water drainage is an issue can be enough to keep a gardener out of trouble. Just not filling in swales, not running the outflow from an eavestrough onto the lot next door and not building-up long flower beds or lawns along fence lines, would prevent a significant number of complaints and arguments.

In Brampton, filling and grading is regulated by bylaw #143-95, and it might surprise readers to discover that if grades are to be changed, by even as little as one inch, a permit is required.

If you are contemplating making modifications to the garden layout or if you are the victim of a neighbour's ill-conceived improvements', talk to staff in the city works department (905-874-2500). One call could avert a whole lot of grief and expense.

Day +6 cloud and rain 8.4mm Winds SSW22km/h P.O.P.30%
Night -1 loudy WInds SSW22km/h P.O.P.10%