Plans, or the Ramblings of a Masochistic Gardener

Ling, deep in thought, pondering the difficult questions of life, such as, how one ought best go about fixing a leak in the basement?

Function, whether I like it or not, has become the ruler of my garden these days, fusing itself with my definition of the aesthetic.  Whenever I begin to work on a new part of the garden, I always look first to problems which present themselves and ask to be solved.  The nature of what makes up what I consider a problem, however, is entirely subjective.  Sometimes, it is practical- e.g. the wood on the patio is warping to an unsafe degree - how do we fix or replace it?  Sometimes, it’s a matter of personal preference- e.g. I can see too much of my neighbors, what can I plant to create more privacy?  Sometimes it’s environmental- e.g. there are not enough berries for the birds throughout winter- what can I incorporate into the borders to extend their food source supply throughout the colder seasons?  Never once throughout my (albeit still burgeoning) career of designing borders has it ever occurred to me to do so for the sake of “pleasure” as it is generally understood. “Pretty”, and no more than that has never been enough.  A sense of imminent consequence is the only thing that pushes me to move.  

As of late, my preoccupation has been with a leak in the basement.  A steady trickle of water seeps through a crack in the wall of our concrete foundation when the rains grow heavy, and has, in the last year or so, begun to let even more water in.  When I asked the other members of my household more familiar with the matter, they informed me that indeed this leak has existed since the house was built, but never was as severe as it seems to have become as of late.  Alarmed, I immediately set out researching how to fix it as I had become convinced that it will surely lead to the eventual crumbling of my entire house within a matter of months- (of course it won’t, but this pattern of assuming immediate consequences is consistent with me).  

All of the research I had done on the matter seemed to lead me to the conclusion that the surest way to solve this issue was to hire contractors familiar with masonry to dig up the side of the house where the crack is estimated to be, patch the opening up, then go into the basement, and seal up the wall from the inside.  However, also present all throughout my research was the issue of grading, a matter which continued to present itself in the midst of my consultations with various landscapers and contractors. I was told by most of them that a slope leading away from a house was imperative to maintaining its structural integrity, and a couple of them even suggested that I ought to perhaps try to regrade the slope first, and see if this wouldn’t solve the problem, implying further, that it was a task I could likely accomplish on my own.  If it worked, then there would be no need to excavate the side of the house, and if not, then despite the hefty price of such a job, the decision would have been one that was fully informed.  What’s more, is that regardless of there being a leak or not, the grading is something that has to be dealt with anyway, so sensibly, it seems I might as well take the most minimally invasive measure before racking up an inexcusable bill, that may not have been necessary.  

Ling examines the self-made rain garden, different angle, same dilemma

But what of the leak becoming more…leaky?  Doesn’t this indicate that the problem must take into account the possibility of the size of the crack growing?  Upon reflection, it occurs to me that perhaps this might not be the case.  The first major renovation to occur in the garden was our patio.  We had a wooden deck which had warped to a dangerous degree, threatening to ensnare unassuming ankles and feet between its gaps, and then collapse at any moment.  So after much planning, we finally had the old deck torn out and replaced with a much larger (twice the size) concrete patio.  When the deck was broken down and hauled away, a massive hole in the ground was revealed, which was, in the midst of constructing the patio, filled in with soil, and compacted down.  It was only after this patio was installed, did we notice the leak getting worse.  The hypothesis I pose is that due to the increased amount of impermeable surfaces which have been added to the property, combined with the now non-existence of a depression in which rainwater was once allowed to pool, the water has now been diverted over to the side of the house in greater amounts, thus causing the crack not to enlarge, but rather more water to seep through it.  Thus, the solution, it seems, deals with the direction of water.

Aims found, the next step revolves around solidifying the means.  Here, I run into trouble, as (perhaps hinted at previously) whenever I’m presented with a project, I begin to compulsively research all the many ways one could go about achieving the same result, and how each method could also be implemented to further address other issues as well.  E.g.- I’d like to fill this empty space with flowers- “well we need varying heights, color through the seasons, food for the birds, food for pollinators, as many natives as possible, host plants, low maintenance plants”, etc. The list goes on.  I want to wring maximum efficacy of every opportunity presented.  I want to do what is often referred to as “too much”.  I make things overly complicated, and find myself extremely uncomfortable and distrustful if something is resolved without an immense amount of difficulty, time, and stress.  I hope I haven’t already begun to sound like too much fun.

The culprit, most likely.

After mulling over the matter, I have determined two main aspects of solving this problem I would like to attempt:

The first involves regrading the slope of the dirt next to the area where the leak is, so that it is noticeably angled away from the house.  This leak is located right along the side of our house leading to and from the backyard.  There is a narrow strip of grass lined with a brick wall the neighbors built.  As of now, the surface of the grass, at a quick glance appears to be flat, but upon a closer inspection, one will see that it gently slopes towards our house.  The house, however, has windows in the basement, which are lined all along the lower points of the wall outside, making the regrading even trickier, as the slope cannot be built up past a certain point.  The only solution then, if the goal is to have a noticeable slope away from the house, would be to dig dirt away from the area to be determined as the lowest point of the slope.  But because the alley is so narrow (eleven or so feet), I do not wish to have a dramatic V shape of a trench running down along the side of my house.  It ought to, at least, be wide and flat enough at its bottommost point to serve as a walkway…

And thus, the answer arrived in a flash: A swale!  It’s the perfect solution.  It will lead the water away from the house and out into the street.  

But wait…out into the street?  - And now, thoughts of wasteful runoff start flooding into my head.  I see sewer water levels rising, streets overflowing with brown soup.  Mass drainage chaos.  Can’t there be someway to create a rain garden at the end of the swale?  Trouble here is, there is a manhole covering in the direction where the runoff would lead, and I have yet to find out as to whether or not it would be ok to plant around it, so until then, I must find a better way to ensure there will be less water gushing out into the street.

And thus flashed the next solution: A rain garden elsewhere!

Astilbe Purple Candles, a purported good plant for rain gardens and wet areas, happy next to the waterfall after a heavy rain.

Indeed, when the rains are heavy, a portion of the retaining wall opposite our house gushes with water, resembling  a small waterfall.  I would not be surprised if there is a correlation between when the waterfall occurs and when the wall in the basement leaks.  The pressure of the water has been so hard, that it has begun to create its own small depression in the dirt.  A five inch deep, one foot wide bowl has already been carved out, almost as if it’s saying- here is the beginnings of a rain garden, if you should seek to build one.  

My first instinct is to take this even further…make the rain garden HUGE.  Span the entire length of the retaining wall.  I see gradating rain gardens shaped into little pools, each flowing into the next once the first level has reached its fill- a suburban irrigation innovation invoking the Floating Gardens of Babylon…  

But I fear, for a novice gardener, this is too much work, and too heavily scented with an air of failure.  Reeling it back in, I understand that the second part of this project, is an accessory to the main resolution to the issue, and thus, not exactly vital to reaching the end goal.  It would, however, certainly help with regards to collecting and holding rainwater so that it may drain in its own time, as opposed to letting it all gush towards the house, and into the street.  

Is it all sounding quite tedious? - because it’s sounding like heaven to me… I live for the creation and elimination of problems.  I live for painstaking, long term projects, which require years to achieve just the semblance of what the final form will look like, and ultimately, really, have no real end.  There will always be new problems created, new problems asked to be solved, and I yield to the fact that gardening is a masochist’s game, and I am but another helpless member, helpless at the sight of troubles asking to be solved.