How to get rid of standing water in your yard

Advice from our friend Mike McGroarty.

It's that time of the year when any area in a yard that can hold water probably is.
Standing water in your yard can be a real nuisance. It provides a safe haven for bacteria and a place for mosquitos to breed.

If you have an area or areas in your yard that retain water, you have options.

The first option is to install a small catch basin or french drain system and actually drain the water to a ditch or creek if you have either near by [not a bad option--I had one in Pennsylvania and it worked beautifully--pjp].

If you don't have a ditch or creek that you can drain water into and the standing water is not an excessive amount, you can actually install a french drain system that will carry the water away from the area underground.

This is done by installing plastic pipe underground. When complete the system is invisible. But there is a limit to the amount of water you can divert using this type of a system. For more information read this article

The third option is to build a rain garden, a garden that is designed to allow water to accumulate,then seep into the ground slowly.

In a rain garden you put only plants that are known to tolerate really soggy soil. For the most part, that pretty much eliminates all of the most popular landscape plants. However, there are a lot of really interesting plants that will do well in a rain garden.

Thanks, Mike!