My back yard is about 50' wide by about 40' long. (I know, that's tiny. But not for L.A.) My problem is, over the space of the 40', the yard slopes about a foot, which I guess isn't much, but still when it rains I end up with standing water right next to my house.

So I was thinking about making a foot-high retaining wall or terrace along my back fence, but I have these cape honeysuckles along the fence, which means I would have to pile an extra foot of dirt on the bottom of them. Would this hurt them?

Also, has anyone here leveled a yard by themselves? How do you do it?

Oh, man! This is my area of expertise! If it weren't so far, I'd bring a dozer and transit and do it for you!

Do you have any pictures?

Nope, but I'll see if I can get my sweetie to fix the digital camera tomorrow and take a couple. (It breaks all the time, ever since he bounced it off the curb and into a puddle.)

But the photos will include much construction debris, as we're remodelling and the contractors are using the back yard as a temporary dumpster right now.

A retaining wall along your fence is not going to help the standing water problem next to your house. The slope of your yard towards your house is creating a structural danger to the foundation of your home. Cracking in concrete walls will occur or wood will rot and invite insect damage as well. You need to regrade this area and get the slope running AWAY from your house as quickly as possible to prevent this. You can easily do this yourself. Depending on how much it is sloped, add a layer of gravel first (for better drainage) and top with top soil. Good luck. Becki

Hey GreenThumbs! I think regrading is what I was talking about. See, I was figuring we'd have to dig up the yard so it would slope toward the back wall rather than the house, and we'd put the extra dirt there, along the back wall, and make a retaining wall to keep it there. I believe retaining walls are more for keeping hillsides from eroding, but I thought it might work for this, too.

It never occurred to me to build the slope UP toward the house, but I'm pretty sure we can't do that. The house is on a slab foundation, so it's not raised up off the ground at all, so if we added material enough to fix the slope, we'd have a foot of dirt piled up against the sliding glass patio door. Which is why I think we have to dig toward the back wall. I hope I'm explaining this right.

We're just lucky we live in Southern California where it almost never rains. We've only had three decent rains since we bought the place, which has been almost 3 years. What I don't understand is how this has never caused a problem since the house was built in the 50's. Maybe it's not a problem because the standing water is so infrequent, and I'm just being stupid, but I don't see how that could be.

I don't know much about that kind of thing, but I would imagine you'd have to dig it out and haul away the soil until it's level.

I don't envy you a job like that.

geegee,
If you go to my link under my signature, you will see pictures of my back yard. It was sloped towards my house. I leveled it myself. I used a tiller, shovel and a wheelbarrow and moved about 195 loads of dirt(used it to build raised beds in the front yard). I then built a retaining wall out of landscape timbers. I used stakes, string and a string level to get the yard as level as I could but left it so it would drain away from the house. It was a lot of work but well worth it. My yard does not wash away.
You should have an easier time than I did, I was digging in good old Georgia red clay.

If you like your yard the way it is and aren't thrilled about grading it to slope in the opposite direction that it slopes now, you could put a drainage ditch close to your house, to carry the water away when it rains. It's invisible...not an open "ditch". (You wouldn't have to make it deep, since you wouldn't be using it as a perimeter ditch, diverting incoming water.)

I'll be back in a minute. I'm gonna draw a picture.

Cindy

Just dig a trench on the back side of your house (a foot or so away...whatever), 16-18 inches deep, doesn't have to be very wide, fill the bottom with a layer of gravel (2,3,4 inches), then put a pipe with holes in it on top of that (we use 4' pipe that comes in big rolls), add another layer of gravel on that (the gravel will fill in on the sides of the pipe, too), then fill dirt back on top of it. You can run this pipe out to a place to drain, or better yet if your gutter drain is underground, there are adapters that fit on the end of 4" drain pipe to attach to gutters, or other size drains. It's real easy, and it works.

Cindy

I had exactly this problem too on a bigger scale GG. I hired a backhoe/bucket and had the operator reshape the backyard. It involved a shallow surface drain running across the back and around the side of the house. The soil which was removed i used to build up a pad for a shed. End result is a slope away from the back of the house into the dish drain which means the high side of the drain angles down a little more steeply. Below the drain i also put ag pipe as is illustrated in the above post. All up relatively cheap and very effective. Now if i can just figure out how to draw a diagram and give you a link to it....

Here ya go. I think i went the long way about it but you get the picture. (No pun intended)


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/m.longstaff/Drainage.jpg

Thanks, you guys. I think I'm going to have to take the route Frustrated took and do it by hand because, A) Can't afford to hire someone, what with having to put on new roof and fix massive termite/water damage in kitchen/dining room, and B) Yard is totally enclosed with no way of getting heavy machinery back there.

It looks like a lot of work, but at least I know it can be done.

Just a thought for you...

you said that you didn't want to have a foot of dirt outside of the backdoor..who wouldn't. How about this idea. Make a nice patio at the rear of the house...you can do this with simple pavers. Then regrade your yard and where the foot of dirt meets the patio, you can make a nice little retaining wall about 2 feet high. You can use this wall as additional seating if you have backyard get togethers or as a place to put larger potted plants.

great idea!! i wish i'd thought of that!!

Good idea! I thought we might be starting on the "monster project" in November when our new roof is finished, but due to permit probs and contractors who seem to show up only when they FEEL like it, now I'm just hoping they START the d*mn roof by November. Unless we get really motivated during the Christmas season (HAH!) it looks like we won't be getting to it till January.

Hey! Cool! I'm glad you like the idea! See, I knew all those hours of watching HGTV would come in handy!!