Water Works

Down the side of the house, when it rains, is a water slide.  It shoots out of the drain spout, hits the flag stones, and rushes down the side of the house.  It continues to the patio and then onto the grass, creating a mud path until the garage.  Grass won't grow since the water washes away any seeds.  The path gets dangerously slippery as well.  

We have now fixed the problem: Will created a new drainage system with a 100 foot plastic pipe.  

Will created a series of elbow turns and attached the drainage pipe underneath one piece of flagstone while I dug a trench.

We then buried the pipe in side flower bed, where we have mostly hostas.  We lined the pipe directly against the brick border so we knew where it was and weren't in any danger of hitting the pipe if we plant in there.  

We angled the pipe towards the bottom of the bed to go through the gate and then let the pipe stay above ground down the side of the fence.  

Stirling helped with the digging by moving her bone around, reburying it in several places with the fresh dirt. 

 The rest of the pipe was hidden by mulch, hay, and tree debris until it reached the lowest flower bed, where we have all the tiger lilies and the hummingbird feeder.

At the bottom, Will attached another, smaller sealable hose that we can use the water to water the lilies, lavender, etc.   We spent the afternoon digging, gluing, fixing the water issue.  We rotated the compost pile and rotated/reorganized wood pile.  Plus, I got rid of the rotting wooden deck chair stuffed behind one of the bushes!

Preliminary testing shows no water leakage but just in case, we haven't buried the end of the pipe.  We feel that we have solved the water slide issue though.  Hopefully now we can grow some grass and end the mud pits along the pathway to the alley.