Whenever it rains heavily, it pours off the roof in two places in the front, on either side of the front door stoop. One "waterfall" lands on a boxwood that seems to handle the deluge with grace. ("An extra drink of water? Don't mind if I do!")
The second spot, on the other hand, was causing erosion and keeping grass from getting established. We didn't want to invest in/bother with a gutter system, so we put a few bags of river stones there to take the brunt of the falling water. It seems to have worked. This part of the front needs serious revamping in coming months, but whatever else I may change, I'll definitely leave stones here to catch the runoff.
Earlier this year, I wrote about another, even heavier rain we had in the winter, pointing out places that needed attention. I guess we haven't really dealt with those issues; rain gathers in parts of the gravel path. As long as it's not an incredible amount of water, these puddles disappear fairly quickly, but if we ever need to use the path during a heavy rain, it might be inconvenient.
I'm not sure that we can easily fix some of the problem areas, but the main gate is a priority. I'm hopeful that this situation can be at least improved, if not completely solved.
Here you can see where the water puddles in parts of the gravel parking/driving area. You can also see that we haven't finished spreading gravel. My only excuse for not having gotten further is that it's HOT outside, this time of year, and I've chosen to focus on other things, instead.
I don't know if you can tell in these photos, but this part of the gravel path (between the gate and garage) practically turns into a riverbed during a hard downpour.
I guess the path creates a sort of shallow ditch-- a low spot. The branch of the path leading to the house goes uphill enough that it stays nice and dry.
See my little stream, about to brim its banks?
Well, I always did think it would be romantic and wonderful to have your own private little stream cutting across your property... I just get mine only on very rainy days!
