Spring can be a time of bountiful rain. It’s also a time of snow melt and runoff. Is your garden washing away? If you’d like to keep those flowers, garden beds, and grass that you’ve carefully installed, watch carefully for signs of erosion and take action to avoid problems in your garden.

Watch for Signs of Soil in Motion

As water flows around your garden beds and pathways, you’ll notice gravel, mulch, and soil streaming out of the areas around your garden and into your lawn. Avoid this annual movement of material by placing barriers around your garden beds and pathways to keep the everything where it belongs. Redesign the contours of your garden to avoid erosion by strategically situating your garden beds. Place them in flat areas of the garden. If you want a wetland garden, put it in a naturally wet part of the garden where water pools but does not flow out.

Look for Lawn Damage

If you’ve had a cold winter and your garden is icy, ice crystals may have formed in your soil. This happens when a garden goes through a lot of freeze and thaw changes over the winter. Rain falls, puddles form, and then those puddles freeze. As those crystals turn to mud, it’s easy to turn that wet area of the garden into a place where there’s no grass, just a mud pit. Be proactive about drainage during the spring, summer, and fall to prevent water from accumulating in a puddle. Contour your garden and send the water to a French drain or swale so that it doesn’t form a puddle. If you can’t solve your puddle problems right now, avoid walking through those muddy areas and wait until the water has evaporated or drained. Then work on installing new drainage systems.

Look for Waterfalls Around Your House

The structures around your home can contribute to landscape erosion. If your gutters are clogged and overflowing, water will pour from your gutters onto the ground around your home. The impact of the water can cause erosion immediately under the gutters. The water moving down a slope can lead to erosion elsewhere in the garden. Gutter replacement, especially with clog-free gutters can dramatically reduce this cause of erosion. Even if your gutters are running clear, you need to be conscious of where you direct all of that spring runoff once it runs down your downspouts. Moving water out onto the lawn can lead to puddles or runoff next to your home. Direct water into drains or into intentionally-designed areas for holding water, such as ponds or rain gardens.

When you’re looking for erosion solutions, contact Lednor Home Solutions. We’re here to help you enhance your home drainage systems. Whether you’re looking for low-maintenance gutters or planning for gutter replacement, we can help. Schedule an appointment today.

Written by Del Thebaud