Drainage solutions

We've seen a huge increase in the amount of rain we're getting here in East TN, and although I know no water can be much worse, it's causing a lot of flooding and several areas of concern.

So this was Christmas 2015, after adding all the veggie boxes to this side of the yard and more stone mulch, the water just didn't have anywhere to go.

 The driveway drains back here too, and when it rained last week the water was over the boxes and the outlet for the driveway drain. We had to come up with something to keep this from reaching the house! So we decided to put in 3 drainage solutions and hope that the combination will be enough to keep the lake down to a small stream.
We started with a french drain under the path by the fence that separates the flower area from the dog's area. The water was collecting leaves there and would cause a dam, that we believe was the biggest issue inside that area.

We moved the rock and pavers lining the path and dug a 12 foot trench 1 foot wide and 1 foot deep. 

Then we filled it with a french drain pipe (the black corrugated one with a sock and peanuts surrounding it). I failed to take a picture of it or the gravel we put around it to fill the trench. 

We then re-laid the fabric, pavers, and gravel path that was there. 

This should allow the area to drain into the trench and water can come out the other side of the fence where the grass is and keep it from clogging up this low spot.

The second part of our drainage solution is to expand the current rain garden to hold more water. We can't expand inside the fence, because of the boxes and current landscaping, so we're expanding the part outside the fence. 

We dug an additional 6 feet of the lawn out today, and we're using the dirt to create a large berm (on the right in the photo above) that will  direct the water to the left so it slows down a little. 

It's right in front of the bees, so once it's full of flowers it should be a great resource for them. 

We're hoping to finish digging it tomorrow, and we still have to dig a pit for our dry well, the last part of our solution. Then it's just the fun stuff, starting flower seeds for plants to put in the rain garden! 

I'll post an update when we finish the digging ;) And it's scheduled to rain Monday, so we get to test it out soon!