Like so many in the UK we have suffered a very wet week and weekend. Although, luckily for us our house is on the side of the Malvern hills and so not really at much risk of flooding unlike some people who are having a horrid time. Whenever we have heavy rain for any period of time our patio floods as you can see above. We have to put a plank across so the cat can get into the garden and so I can get out and feed the birds without necessarily resorting to wellie boots.
When we first moved here about eight years ago the far right hand corner of the patio (top left in the photo above) was constantly flooded. The ground is awful just a mixture of builders rubble and poor soil and digging in the corner uncovered lots of gravel and a rotten fence post. Obviously this was a long term problem so I decided that we might as well make it into a pond. We have to put in some supports for the fence post and these created an edge to the ‘pond’ and when it had drained one day I filled the bottom with large cobbles and planted out marginal plants; things that would enjoy having their roots in the water but not be too bothered when it dried out. There are a lot of Cyperus glaber in this area which I had grown from seed and which annoyingly self-seed all over the place.
Anyway, needless to say, as soon as I had done this (above) and was pleased with my pond, already with a resident frog, the water mysteriously disappeared and didn’t come back even when it rained. My Dad did some investigating. The Malvern Hills are full of springs which appear and disappear. Further down the slope from us Dad discovered that some serious work had been done to clear debris and rubbish from a permanent spring, which is almost a waterfall, and the water was flowing very freely. We suspect that whatever the workmen did improved the drainage and the water that was sitting in the corner of my garden was linked to this spring and now flowing away. Bye bye pond.
However, having been rather distracted with other things in recent years I have been very good at blanking this corner and it has remained full of cobbles with Cyperus glaber flowering profusely in the summer and when, like this week, we have excessive rain it does act like a sump with the water slowly by surely draining into it. Although not as pretty as when it was a pond. When I was taking the photo above this morning I noticed that the water was actually running into the corner through the mortar of the wall behind it – so this is obviously where one of the flood springs is located.
On a plus note the ground slopes up a little to the house and garage and so far the water hasn’t got that far. This flood is a minor inconvenience for us but my thoughts are with those who have suffered much worse and also with people in other parts of the world who have had to deal with flood, hurricanes, serious drought etc.
