Garden ideas for a flood area.

We are fortunate to have a garden that isn’t overlooked. The reason it isn’t overlooked it that there is a river 200m away and the back of the house is a floodplain.

Despite having not been an issue for over 10 years, the garden has flooded twice this year and last month if got up to the house. It seems to come down the sides of the garden.

At present, it is a pretty basic garden. We have a young son who is running around out there with balls, remote controlled cars etc. so it was low down on the list of things we needed to address. It’s pretty much a 30:70 patio to grass ratio with a small bed with some shrubs on one side. I’ve seeded a fair bit of clover in there to make it somewhat better for the environment (very popular with the local bees).

As the garden is North West facing, only the back of the garden gets any sun during the autumn/winter months, but with no development at the rear, we get plenty of sun in the summer.

When the river floods, it doesn’t come flowing through the back fence, but slowly starts rising up through the ground. I’ve seen some suggestions of improving the drainage, but the at that point of it getting to this stage, there is nowhere to drain to!

Basically, we want to slow the progress of the water via landscaping. We had thought about putting in a raised bedding area running along the back fence – potentially and we have a few trees currently in pots we planned to plant.

Any suggestions (other than turning the clock back 3 years and not buying this house) would be welcome.