Hi. Wondering if you kind people can offer some advice please:
We have a 1939 house with a 120 foot garden, mostly grass, lots of plants and some apple, pear and acer trees. It's relatively flat and just a few inches under the soil is clay.
During the winter months and heavy summer downpours, the soil is sodden and the rain pools. The garden becomes unusable.
There is nowhere to french drain the excess to as the woods behind the garden are at the same level and pretty much permanently wet from the stream that runs through them - it would just back up. I had an idea to break through the clay layer, with the thought of digging a few holes that would provide a drainage system, like pullng the plug in a sink. Using an extendable manual auger, we dug over 13 feet down and it was still clay.
The hole was there for a couple of years, would fill up and take an age to subside. It's now been filled in.
Before digging it, I Googled how deep the clay layer is in our area/postcode but could find no helpful info from any geoligal surveys or web sites, so digging seemed the only way.
It nags me that we could have been within an inch of getting through or it could have been another 100 feet.
I was wondering if you knew of any sites where I could find how deep the clay is in our area please? We live in Cardiff, South Wales.
Thank you.
