The Importance of Drainage for a Healthy Lawn

You’ve aerated, overseeded, added perfectly placed landscape lighting, have planned your award winning speech for winning best lawn in the neighborhood, and then after a bit of rain, you notice something–standing water.

No need to be devastated or throw the speech notes in the garbage. When it comes to lawn drainage services in Charlotte, we’ve got you covered!

You may ask, how much standing water is too much water? If you notice water standing in your lawn for more than thirty minutes, then you have a drainage problem that needs to be addressed to reach that picture perfect lawn. Now that you know whether or not you have a need for lawn drainage services, let’s discuss some of the potential determinants if you have poor yard grading.

Standing Water
As just mentioned, standing water can cause several issues. Not only does standing water cause slippery and dangerous surfaces, the excess water can drown your lawn. This drowning is due to grass needing oxygen and the excess water filling the air gaps in the soil, and thus, drowning the grass.

Surface Damage
Walking and moving objects like trash cans or wheelbarrows across an over-saturated lawn will not only compact Charlotte’s clay soils, but it can leave permanent marks or tracks in your yard.

Disease Caused By Fungus
Excess water can cause your grass roots to rot and can lead to disease. This typically starts off as yellow patches in your yard. Once fungus sets in, little can be done to get your lawn back, except reseeding the dead patches in the fall.

Shallow Root Growth
Grass roots that don’t have to go far below the surface to find water can’t withstand drier conditions, leading to dead brown patches in the summer. This often leads to homeowner’s overwatering to get the brown out of their preferred green lawn.

Prone To Disease And Insects
When your lawn has a shallow root system, the grass becomes extremely stressed, making it more susceptible to severe damage from insects and disease. An increase in insects and disease often leads to more chemicals on your lawn to kill them and prevent them from coming back.

More Weeds
Consistently overwatering your lawn can cause a lot of hard-to-kill weeds to grow. Those pesky weeds are the exact opposite of what you want when you’re looking for a luscious lawn.

Loss Of Nutrients
If your lawn gets too much water, critical nutrients are washed away before they can be absorbed through the root system, and thus, are wasted.

Excessive Fertilizer Needs
Because your grass isn’t getting the nutrients it needs, as mentioned above, you’ll have to use additional fertilizer to try and compensate.

Waste Of Money And Water
Your lawn can absorb a limited amount of water at a time, so over watering or watering your lawn when it’s raining causes you to pay for and use water the grass doesn’t need; and, as mentioned above, you’ll be spending more money on costly fertilizer treatments

Add To Groundwater Pollution
Any excess water applied to a yard runs off into the wastewater system, carrying surface pollutants such as pet waste, fertilizers, and other lawn maintenance chemicals.

Soil Erosion
With significant rainfall, your soil is displaced (or take the places of) from where it should be to other areas of your lawn. This process is known as “soil erosion.” Over time, this displacement of soil will cause depth of soil issues which can cause damage to your lawn and landscape.

If you’re noticing standing water in your lawn, or any of the issues presented above that may be due to poor yard grading, contact us for a free, professional evaluation today!