Part of this was surely due to the fact that the Spring had dried out the land, and the neverending summer rains were too much for the land to absorb so quickly. The result was a huge torrent of water standing in everyone's yard waiting to run down the street and into the retention pond.
One simple and straightforward way to encourage proper drainage is to make sure that the landscape of your garden is permeable, including your hardscaping, paths, decks, walkways, and driveways. Installing these areas as pavers or flagstone is much more helpful in stormwater drainage situations than poured concrete at the water is able to drain through the joints in the pavers or flagstones. James Glover Residential & Interior Design
Driveways
No one wants an asphalt airstrip in front of the house, but we sometimes assume that dense paving is necessary to take the load of a carport or driveway. This isn’t always true. Many people have paver driveways that are not only very appealing but are helpful in desperate drainage situations.
Pavements can take up twice as much area as our houses and are a main culprit in all kinds of environmental problems, including polluted runoff, depleted groundwater, high temperatures, unnecessary erosion and stunted tree growth.
This beautiful patio has just enough stone to provide a clean, modern edge, but a percentage of it is permeable because the center is filled with gravel.
Interiors & Architecture Photography by Ken Hayden
This house has an alternating pattern of stone and grass for an outdoor surface that is 50 percent permeable to allow infiltration of water.
austin outdoor design
A good old-fashioned wooden deck is a classic and beautiful example of a pervious surface that can also handle pedestrian traffic, making your garden more livable.
Quezada Architecture
In this example the owners have probably saved quite a bit of money over the life span of this deck. Instead of using wooden planks that would need to be refinished and eventually replaced, they’ve used wood to frame a low-maintenance and relatively porous gravel deck.
Fifth Season Landscape Design & Construction
Paths and Steps Remember that even with a classic gravel path, properly installing the subgrade, the base course and the surface layer can give you a much more durable result. Instead of just throwing some gravel down in your garden, consult a landscaper to get some good recommendations on plastic grids and fabric backings that discourage weed growth.
Margie Grace - Grace Design Associates
A change in grade can often be tricky, so you may want to use the steps as a location for some feature stones while maintaining the gravel look as contrast.
The Garden Route Company
In a similar way, you could use wood or masonry frames to give a cleaner edge to your gravel path in your Gainesville lawn
Mulch can make for a simple and attractive path if you’d like something softer under your feet. It’s extremely porous and performs surprisingly well, even after quite a bit of traffic. It’s also inexpensive and easy to maintain on your own so that you can enhance your own Gainesville landscape.
Mariana Pickering (Emu Architects)
Back in my mom’s yard, she has revamped the whole backyard on a very tight budget to create more opportunities for stormwater to infiltrate the ground. Notice the small area of the garden that resembles a Texas riverbed. It basically is a deeper section of the garden filled with river rock and pebbles, where the stormwater can gather before slowly being absorbed back into the ground. My mom then added a stone path with gravel joints to balance accessibility and permeability.