The Brew Cabin

Posted: **Thu Aug 25, 2005 12:25 pm**

I have had a small flooding problem in my garden which I have decided to solve by raising the flower bed.

Picture this, I have now built a retaining wall, only about a foot high and now need to infill inside this wall, which is now like a trough about 18ft by 3ft by 1ft deep.

The area inside is prone to flooding which I will no longer see when I infill.....but what should I fill it with?

Is the best option really a grab bag of top soil (which seeems a bit of a waste at Â£40 a bag) or can someone suggest something else which would aid the drainage?

Posted: **Fri Aug 26, 2005 6:00 pm**

What are you going to grow in this flower bed, Stan? Will it be flowers? If so, your could use a 1:1 mix of grit sand (it MUST be grit sand) and quality topsoil, to give you a better-drained planting medium.

At only 300mm depth, there's nothing to be gained by using an inert gravel at the base, but, if you fancy growing alpines, which need very sharply drained soil, you could, I s'pose, put 50-100mm of pea shingle or grit in the base, and the top it up with 200-250mm of the soil/sand mix.

Posted: **Fri Aug 26, 2005 7:04 pm**

Are you sure you are going to 'solve' the flooding with your solution, difficult to picture exactly what you have built, but are you not trapping the water inside the bed, just rasing level will not get rid of it, just, as you say, put it out of sight. You may end up with a soggy soil right through bed as the water capilarys up.

The Brew Cabin

Best infill? - New bed soil or aggregate?