Looking for advise on lawn drainage

Anto.

Hi,

I have searched through this forum and many other forums to get a handle on what I need to do, but I think I need some slightly more "expert advice" on my drainage issue.

Background:
I moved into a new build in 2007 and I live in a corner house so effectively, all of the builders rubble was placed under mine. A relatively nice looking seed was planted by the builder and it looked great for around a year. I then hand dug my 12 metre x 9 metre lawn and literally turned the turf over and used the grass / weeds that was left as compost (as I dug around 1 foot down) and pulled out 15 wheelbarrows of bricks, metal tape, plastic cones, tins of beans etc. I had been breaking up the soil as I was doing this for aeration.

Anyway I got around 7/8's of the garden done by hand and literally was physically destroyed by it so the time I got to the fence (to the adjoining neighbours garden) I wanted to get it finished so I didn't dig down very far (maybe 1/2 foot) and just removed the turf and didn't take out any of the builders rubble or soil. I did replace the displaced topsoil with 1 tonne of screened toil soil and compost and reseeded.

I placed my 6 x 4 foot wooden garden shed in the North East corner of the garden and as this was in line with where I did not dig the lawn out properly, (and that this whole side of the garden is north facing and that the shed was only placed on bricks) I incurred very poor drainage problems. As a result, very little grass grew, moss grew and during times of heavy rain it would resemble a paddy field (but only in this part of the garden).

What didn't help was that my neighbour to the right had his whole garden paved so I was receiving excess water when it rained but I could not figure out exactly what point it was coming from.

I finally decided this year (May 13) I would do the job properly so I rotovated the whole back garden and have removed 3 tonnes of poor soil. I have had a number of deluges and the whole garden appears to have been OK apart from one part during 13mm of rain fall on 12/06/13 . So far I have done:

- Removed 3 tonnes of poor soil and rocks etc
- Levelled out 7/8's of the garden
- Applied weed killer to the soil on two separate occasions and it appears to have done it's job

What I need to do:

- Place a paving slabs to form a path from the concrete beside the house to the shed (using hardcore, sand etc)
- Place paving slabs under the shed area (using hardcore, sand etc)
- Build a vegetable box along the side which has poor drainage (in an attempt to have the flow of water towards the flowerbox)

Before I consider the above, I need some advice on how I could remove the excess water and what works I should consider taking.

Do I build a soak pit around 3 foot down to allow the water to drain down (this part is UNDER the shed though where the water is coming from my neighbours garden but ONLY in times of very heavy rain) ?

Do I build some trenches with pea gravel and pipes to allow water to flow back towards the vegetable box ?

Do I attempt to build a French and have the water heading into the water system ?

I accept I need to tilt the path slightly, is it best to tilt it towards the vegetable box ?

I apologies for the plethora of information but I feel the situation in is difficult to describe.

I have obtained chicken feed, 2 tonnes of screened top soil and high quality seed from a greens keeper I am friendly with so I am ready to go but wanted to wait and see how the drainage aspect fared out.

I attach some photographs of the garden and the soil arond where the drainage problems were happening.

The Red is the path
The Blue is the Flowerbox
The Green is the Shed
The Black is the boundary of the slabs around the shed
The Yellow dot is where the water ingress is happening into the garden



Thanks in advance!