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My neighbor's sprinkler runoff turned my 3 year old fern bed into mud and he says it's just 'how water works'
I live in Portland and every June since 2022 he waters his lawn for 45 minutes straight, so the runoff pools right where my 6 ferns sit. I showed him the soggy roots and he told me plants 'figure it out.' Has anyone built a simple berm or trench that actually stops this without starting a fight?
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karenlee18d ago
That 45 minute soak in June is brutal, that much water can drown ferns since they like damp soil, not swamp. Two summers back I would've shrugged and said water goes where it goes, but then I watched my own lady ferns rot after a neighbor did the same thing. So I dug a shallow trench about 6 inches deep along the property line and piled the dirt into a small berm on my side, and it caught most of the runoff. A 4 inch deep trench filled with gravel works too if you don't want a dirt mound. It's not a fight, it's just landscaping, and you can frame it as fixing your own yard. He keeps his grass, you keep your ferns.
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karen_martin18d ago
A buddy of mine out in Beaverton had the same mess a couple summers ago, his neighbor would run the sprinkler so long the water would just sheet across the lawn and soak his raised beds. He dug a small trench maybe 6 inches deep right along the fence and lined it with river rock, and it worked like a charm. Water pools in the rocks instead of his beds, and the neighbor never even noticed it was there. What is it about people who soak a lawn for 45 minutes and then act like water is a mystery? You could also try mounding up the dirt on your side so the runoff naturally flows back toward his grass.
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