Beginner Gardening: Drainage woes, 0 by greengills

greengills wrote:
New guy here to the forum and I hope you can help me...

We have been in our home for about 7 years and the whole time we have not been able to get our backyard established. We hired a guy to put our yard in and we brought in topsoil for the front yard and it is doing well (although I plan to change the design pretty significantly) In the backyard, however, he counseled us to not do topsoil and that "grass grows anywhere". Well, he pushed the dust and rocks around and put a sprinkler system in and then we put down sod. What we (or he) had not realized that we had a serious water problem. The ground is made up of clay and a LOT of rocks and therefore water just sits before slowly going away AND our neighbors had ll brought in topsoil which raised their yards several inches so, as a result we get a lot of runoff.

I attempted to install a french drain, but, that was a novice attempt and seemingly futile. I had a landscape company come by and look at it and they are convinced that the real solution is to excavate the yard by about 8 inches and bring in good soil...for the sum of about $7,500. I have included a picture of our deserted yard with hopes that you may have some ideas for us.

Thanks,

-gl