landscaping:dry creek/wet creek

[Stomper]

I am searching ideas for when I landscape my yard and have come up with an idea for water drainage of the area. We want to building a dry creek bed through the middle of the yard to help channel the snow melt and rain water away from where we don't want it in the yard. My wife has always wanted a small water fall or creek so I have come up with this idea to have a small wet creek that doubles as a drainage system for the yard, but I need some advice as to if it will work or not. The creek bed will be roughly 50 yards long before it leaves the area I want to drain. I will grade the yard towards the creek bed to aid in the draining of my yard. The water will enter the creek bed and flow out of the yard. Just before it leaves my yard, I will build a small pond just big enough to hold just enough water to keep the creek flowing. A pump will take the water in the pond to the top of the creek again to keep it flowing. In freezing conditions the pump will obviously be removed and the pond pumped dry. The bottom end of the pond where it leaves my yard will be slightly lower than the the rest of pond edge wich will allow any additional rain water drained into the creek bed to escape, therefore draining my yard of acess water but still keeping enough to operate the wet creek. When the snow melts it will drain into the creek and fill up the pond, once the pond is full it will overflow out and continue to drain away. The creek bed and pond will have pond liner installed as it would normally be in a wet creek system.
Will this work and what are some of the issues that I should be concerned about.

 

[airbiscuit]

I like the concept, but it will take a pretty good pump for that distance/flow. Do you anticipate any issues with lawn clippings, fertilizer washing into the pond?

 

[Stomper]

No I cant forsee any issues with the lawn clippings. I plan to have an area with smaller river rock that extends out a bit from the edges of the creek. That should catch any grass clippings plus we bag our clippings
I will have to do some research on pumps

 

[/pine]

A great deal of the general maintenance for anyone living in the mountains or on grades is dealing with and controlling storm water runoff...
You can design a system to manage a certain amount of water (say a 25 year storm)...but there will always be exceptions and extremes...

It's those exceptions and extremes that will dictate any adjustments that will be needed over a time span...

"Dry stream beds" (AKA landscaped ditches) are mostly what I use...it does not take a large accumulation of leaves and sticks to cause a dam up and allow the runoff to escape the ditch...

Good luck...

 

[Stomper]

Leaves have crossed my mind as there are a few large poplars in the area that the creek will end but I was hoping that with my annual fall leaf clean up I would be able to keep that issue at bay. Maybe Maybe not. I would use my leaf blower to help remove them from the creek bed.

 

[Stomper]

Checking into algae issues, it seems that it is quite a problem for these systems and a lot of work to keep clear of it, especially with the length that this will end up being. Might be best to just stick with the dry creek. If it is dry I can just blow the leaves out and wash it with a hose if/when it needs it.

 

[Streetcar]

Sediment can cause problem for pumps. Recirculating drainage water will have algae problem

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

A picture would help. Agree your solution sounds like constant maintenance.

 

[Groo]

50 yards will be no problem for the right pump. Keeping a liner from leaking over 50 yards might be. Could have a pond near the top, and recirculation the first 25 feet, then leave the rest of the ditch dry. No sense draining it in the winter. It's just going to fill up again. Might want some Koi to keep it from becoming a mosquito breeding ground. You could do a buried barrel instead of a pond as another option. There are options to combat algee as well. If the rocks get to gross, turn off the pump and kill off for whatever is growing on them.

 

[Stomper]

I don't have any pictures of my creek as I'm still in the planning stages of seeing if a wet creek is worth. I will however be installing a dry creek for sure similar to the one below. My wife loves playing around with plants and flowers so I can get my creek and she gets a place to put her plants.

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