Floodwater Garden

About five years ago, we built a garden for this wonderful client. When they later added a small home addition, the landscape needed an update to tie everything back together. The property sits in a shallow basin with heavy clay soils, so even light rain would leave the yard flooded. To fix this, we installed two dry wells, reworked the downspout connections, chose plants with high evapotranspiration rates, and added a large pea stone courtyard that stays cleanly above any standing water.

Flooding is a common challenge in flat, urban neighborhoods where there’s little natural drainage and the ground is often compacted or paved over. Water has nowhere to go, and even short bursts of rain can create pooling, soggy lawns, and stress on foundations. Managing that water responsibly—through infiltration, planting design, and grading—becomes as much a part of the design as the plants or hardscape themselves.

With full sun and hard-packed clay, we leaned on tough, adaptable species — redtwig dogwood, eastern red cedar, elderberry, and what might be our most successful winterberry hedge yet. Local bluestone became both the steps from the sliding doors and the splash blocks below the modified downspouts. We also made a few simple carpentry upgrades, including a small deck extension that connects the old garden to the new architecture.

We’re excited to see how this landscape continues to grow and mature in the years ahead.