Not every wet meadow is a wet meadow biotope - in many a garden meadow at home, the water simply accumulates so that the plants are literally drowned. In such a case, it is often necessary to effectively drain the meadow. This is especially important if the wet meadow is close to buildings - in such a case there is a risk that moisture will penetrate the walls and cause mold.
Soil conditions ensure moisture
Compacted soil is usually responsible for damp or wet meadows, which does not allow water (e.g. in the form of precipitation) to seep in. Instead, the moisture builds up on the surface, which can be clearly seen from the formation of puddles. Loamy and clayey soils are particularly susceptible. If you do not want to drain the meadow, you can also transform it into a typical wet meadow. In this case, however, you should ensure the right planting, because the herbs that are typical of rich or poor meadows do not thrive on a damp substrate. Typical wet meadow flowers are for example
- Globeflowers
- checkered flowers
- Siberian iris
- butterbur
- and the cuckoo campion, just to name a few. Beech and alder also thrive in moist soil.
drain the meadow
To drain the meadow, it is first of all important to make the soil more permeable. This is done by first mowing the meadow as short as possible and then digging out the upper, solid layers of earth. Fill the resulting pit with coarse gravel, which acts as a kind of drainage. You can also mix the excavation itself with sand and fill it back into the pit. Once this is done, another drainage is placed. To do this, proceed as follows:
- Dig a narrow ditch along the edge of the meadow.
- Further narrow ditches are dug at regular intervals. However, these extend into the meadow.
- In these pits lay slashed drainage pipes.
The excess water from the meadow is channeled into these pipes, penetrating through the numerous slits. From there it gets through the pipes into the drainage pit running along the edge and is thus drained out of the meadow. In some cases, however, it is sufficient to just dig the pits. Instead of pipes, they are filled with a layer of gravel at the bottom, on which fleece is placed. The fleece is intended to prevent the gravel layer from clogging up - and thus becoming ineffective. Finally, there is a layer of earth on top.
tips and tricks
Since drainage is technically not easy and many mistakes can be made, you should - unless you are a craftsman yourself - better let professionals do this task.