Suggestions to fix a muddy lawn

[Ben]

Hi Workshoppers

It's our first winter in a new rental and the lush green back lawn that greeted us on rental commencement in summer is now a mud pit right from the edge of the patio out for a couple of metres.\

Have had tradies in fixing some patio ceiling issues and ladders and tradie traffic have made the matter much worse.

As it's a rental I'm looking for easy solutions to try to improve this at least so the kids can step over it en route to the trampoline! 

[Kermit]

Tricky one @Ben. I would be asking the landlord if they could improve the drainage. What kind of soil is it? Heavy clay?

One trick you might want to try is to aerate it with a garden fork to at least help the rain penetrate more.   

[MartyH]

Obviously the ideal would be to improve the drainage, but I wonder whether just adding some sand might help?

[Marzmaldonado]

Hey Ben, I also live in a rental and have had the same happen to me. As we are both limited on what we can and can't do I asked the rental if we could do it ourselves to reap the benefits at the end. (Good rental tentants and top lush grass). Grab yourself a Soil Ph Testing Kit $16.70 (Bunnings) to see where you soil is at right now. Probably recommend testing it every 4 month, aerate you lawn with by poking holes in and around your lawn to help it breath and drainage. Apply Richgro Gypsum clay breaker $9.76 (Slow solution) or (quick solution) Eco-Organic Garden 2L Hose-On Eco-Flo Gypsum $20.49, soak it in and let it break down into your soil for the recommended time, apply Scotts Lawn Builder 4kg Wetting Agent Fertiliser, this help your lawn retain the amount of water you or the sky throws at it and any amount. Apply grass seeds (your choice) to gain more grass. Soak it all in really well. Remember to fertilise your lawn 3 times a year with Yates 7kg Dynamic Lifter Concentrate Lawn Fertiliser.

[Vera]

I am not sure if you want some more permanent solution, but I know that some plants and trees are very good in up taking the ground water. In Europe for example, an excessive water is cured by planting specific trees. Willows are very good in draining waters because of their root system, for example. Ask the landlord if they can plant an aisle of plants that can suck up the water on the muddy patch(es). This will ensure less maintenance.

[Jason]

Some great suggestions here. I'm sure @Ben really appreciates the advice. Thanks for joining in the discussion @Vera and @Marzmaldonado.

Jason

[Johnnynl]

Not sure of the lay of the land, slope etc, as well as where your current storm water drainage is situated, but from my experience there is only one way to fix it permenantly.
But its not normally a renteeroblem rather the landlords. Nevertheless a simple solution is to firstly find where the wayer is comming from, eg street side, neighbours, from a hillside etc, and then dig a 500mm deep by 200-300mm wide trench right along the offending water entry point all the way to your roof downpipe drain, usually found at a corner of the house. then lay sand layer then stonechip layer, then lay your length 100mm diameter Novaflow pipe along the trench and terminate into your drain.
Then fill up trench with more stone chip.
I assume you have the same product over there, its a hose full of little holes, basically the water hits it and drains right away to your storm drains. Allround a pretty cheap fix, apart from digging lol.

[Ben]

Thanks for all the suggestions Workshoppers!  After trying a few "low effort" options, I finally followed @Johnnynl's advice... but called in the professionals to assist.

I've added a project diary and step by step photos in this post:

https://www.workshop.com.au/t5/Gardening/Project-diary-adding-drainage-to-fix-a-muddy-lawn-and-retur...

Hopefully somebody else can benefit from my experience!