Stop soil washing onto patio

[Frane Selak]

Ok my garden is half done, at the moment its just soil but its virtually ready to re-seed which I'll do next spring. But currently when it rains heavily the soil is washing onto the patio slabs like this.



I have even dug a small ditch along the flags hoping it will drain before filling up but it just fills up and then overflows onto the flags, the garden is sloped towards the flags and the flags then slope slightly towards the drain at the front. The garden was even more sloped than it is now but I've levelled it off as much as I can without going below the level of the fence at the back, it was half way up the gravel boards.

will this stop happening once the grass has taken or do I need to dig down and fill it with gravel along the edge, the soil is pretty compacted in that bit though, its not really been rotavated in that area very well yet as I dont fancy taking a chunk out of my flags with the blades.

[shtu]

To me the options are

Linear drain at edge of paving.
or
Change the slope of the grassed area.

Water will always flow downhill, and even with grass the ground will still get saturated.

[SHutchinson]

Based on my own garden, whatever the water is doing now it'll still do with grass on it. The drain at the front of the patio, is this a channel drain? Could you extend it along this side too?

[Frane Selak]

This will explain the drain, the aco runs round the house and gates, you can see where the soil would wash onto the patio.



I cant really grade the soil anymore, its practically flat compared to how it was, I could reduce the soil level a bit more at the flags end but then the lawnmower would probably take chunks out of the flags. It could be that the soil is just too compacted at the moment in that area, it has had a lot of building materials on it over the last couple of years and that area is where I used to empty the cement mixer at the end of the day, I actually dug about an inch of hard cement of that bit a while ago. this is what it looked like a couple of years ago.

[TA14]

Just fill the ditch with pea shingle and seed the grass. I'd want the grass about an inch above the flag level.

[ukwill]

Linear drain along the edge. Just make sure it’s actually tied into a pipe that takes the water away. For some reason people fit a aco’s across their drives and don’t bother doing that.

These days you’ll have to tie that into a soakaway, as the council probably don’t allow you tie into your waste. You could add a water butt into the drainage line whilst you’re at it.

[8-P]

Surely the answer is to remove a few tonnes of soil. I had the opposite and had to remove the turf, ship in 2 tonnes of top soil to raise it up and put the turf back down.

[sherman]

Just buy a few lengths of the cheapest 4x1 you can find and create a low barrier until spring .
Tap the boards into the ground with a mallet.

Your going to need to regrade it all just before you seed it anyway.

[Ipswich]

I have a low level drain like this. Patio slopes down to the drain, and I think the lawn (clay soil) slopes very slightly to the drain. No issues with soil ending up on the drain or patio.

Might just be an issue until you have turf.