Erosion, standing water and mud: fixing yard drainage in Collin County

Our clay soil barely absorbs water, so when a North Texas storm drops two inches in an hour it has to go somewhere — and if the yard was not graded for it, that somewhere is your slab, your side yard or your neighbour's fence line.

Start with the roof

A single downspout can dump hundreds of gallons in a storm right next to the foundation. Tying downspouts into buried pipe that runs to the curb or a pop-up emitter in the lawn is the cheapest, highest-impact drainage fix there is.

Side yards and low spots: French drains and catch basins

A perforated pipe in a gravel trench, wrapped in fabric, with a catch basin at the low point, moves standing water out of a side yard in one afternoon of work. We size the pipe to the area and always give the water somewhere to go.

Slopes that wash out: ground-cover beds

A bank of mulch on a slope ends up in the street after every storm. Instead, plant a ground cover like purple wintercreeper or Asian jasmine with a drain at the base — the roots hold the soil, the drain takes the runoff, and it stays green all year. It also adds value: a planted slope reads as a finished landscape, not a problem.

Regrading

Sometimes the fix is simply moving soil so the yard falls away from the house at a gentle slope, then covering the reworked area with river rock or sod. On one project we hauled out 27,000 lb of uneven grade and laid 40,000 lb of river rock to solve a backyard that turned into a pond.

If your yard holds water, send us a photo after the next rain — it tells us more than a dry-day visit ever could.