How Can Trees Affect Yard Drainage

When a tree that has been growing for decades raises the lot, it also raises the earth and can create a drainage problem that didn’t exist before. This is an older house and the last one on the street. Many of the surrounding properties drain water through here.

It was originally designed to go across the back of this yard and right across the sidewalk into a ditch.

Over time, this tree has become so large that it raised the earth to a point where the water could no longer find its way out of this yard.

The water was collecting from where you see the man working to the telephone pole, it could not drain out of the yard.

We are giving the water a clear path with a trench that is 18 inches deep and 20 inches wide, this will move the water more efficiently. This french drain will help this yard drain better than when these houses were first built. The water is going to be quickly evacuated from the yard before it can saturate the subsoil, it will run underneath the sidewalk and out into the ditch.

Be sure to take things like this into account when you are evaluating water problems. The homeowner had the choice of keeping the tree or removing it. Whether they chose to keep the tree or not, they needed a drain in this yard because its geography had changed. It isn’t realistic to think that they would be able to remove all the tree roots with a stump grinder.