The curb strip near my sidewalk kept washing out until I tried a dry creek bed approach

I live up in the Pacific Northwest and every spring the runoff from my downspout would carve a little gully right through the grass strip between the sidewalk and the street. I tried tamping down soil, adding grass seed, even dumped a bag of gravel in there once. Nothing held more than a few weeks. Then I watched a video about how ancient Roman roads used layered drainage channels, and it clicked. I dug out a shallow trench, lined it with landscape fabric, and layered in river rock from smallest to largest. After three heavy rainstorms this month, the thing hasn't budged an inch. Anyone else ever use old drainage tricks for modern yard problems?

3 comments

3 Comments

shah.shane2mo agoTop Commenter

Hang on, you buried an entire gutter downspout extension under your lawn? Like a whole underground pipe just to fix a dog swamp? That's wild. I was over here thinking I was clever with my river rocks, and you basically built a hidden drainage tunnel in your backyard.

beth55928d ago

Whoa, I gotta say I see it a bit different. I mean, river rocks are cool and all, but burying a whole gutter pipe under your lawn just sounds like asking for a clogged nightmare down the road. Idk, maybe it's just me, but I've had way too many issues with underground pipes getting filled with leaves and silt over time. Seems like a lot of work for something that could fail in a few years. I'd rather just keep it simple with the rocks and fabric, even if it takes a bit more patching here and there. No offense to the pipe folks, but I'll stick with my dry creek bed, thanks.

william3202mo ago

Oh man, that reminds me of trying to fix a muddy spot in my backyard where the dog kept churning everything into a swamp. I ended up burying an old gutter downspout extension under the lawn and routing it to a gravel pit, worked way better than anything I tried above ground. Sometimes the simplest ideas from way back just make more sense than modern fixes.