Do you have pictures of this issue? It's hard to imagine. French drains come to mind, but that is labor intensive.

My yard is the one closest to the camera

The picture is blurry. I don't know what I'm looking at. Nothing stands out as being wrong in your yard.

Insofar as raising your soil level, you cannot impede the natural flow. If water from their yard must drain through your yard in order to escape, you cannot dam it. And vice versa if your water is escaping through their yard. Likewise, neither of you can funnel water onto the other's property. You have to allow the natural flow to exist.

You could make raised beds on your side of the fence, to raise your ground level. You may be OK if it only floods every so often rarely. I have a hot climate, so here some areas with poor drainage are doing better than I expected because the moisture held in was needed. That would depend on where you are.

You're not exaggerating...there's an actual duck there! How strange!

Here is what I would do:

Need:

Garden hose.

12Volt Sump pump (low cost as it won’t be used very often— $30 Amazon Bacoeng - Solar )

Bricks for a pond 2’W x 2’L x 6”D (maybe the kids plastic pool)

Build a small pond on your side of the fence in front of the fence post. Old bricks should work. Make it about 2 bricks deep. Ring the pond with filter material as you don’t want to clog up the pump. It works with clean water.

Attach the garden hose to the pump and sit the pump down into the pond.

Run the hose to the street — where ever, just so it is off peoples property.

Connect the pump to your car battery and away you go…. Jumper cables should work with the connection. (you may need some extra electrical line but since it’s only 12 volt DC even zip cord should work.)

Don’t run the battery down such that you can’t start the car….

Depending on how deep you neighbors water is you may want to lower the bottom of your pond. Assuming you want to drain their water.

Once the water is gone just take the pump back inside, hose it off real good and store for the next big rain. The car will still start….right? lol

If I’m looking correctly, there is water on your side, too, it runs under the fence and there is a puddle reflecting your variegated hedge. That’s some serious water depth for a duck to swim. Can you report this to the city? Seems your neighbor has to resolve it on his side for you to resolve it on yours. You could build raise beds, but you’d still have puddles of standing water on your side, which is quite undesirable.

If it happens again I will report it. I didn’t know if it was grounds for reporting.

How oddly square and geometrically shaped of a pond.

Good point subk3. I wonder if there's something buried under there that doesn't drain such as an old storage tank. Why not ask the neighbors even if they are "bad" neighbors? Nothing worse than being reported upon without having been spoken to first. If that doesn't work out then move to plan B.

Can you try talking to your neighbor before reporting it to the city? Not sure if you've tried that route yet, but reporting it to the authorities before addressing it with them directly will probably result in some bad blood which is just never good with a neighbor. People can be petty about this kind of thing. Say they respond by paving over the area and installing a basketball hoop just on the other side of your fence and inviting all the neighborhood kids over to play at all hours?

Not sure I fully understand what's going on in your yard, but if it's just one area of the yard that tends to 'pond', one low tech approach that might work is to sink a dry well in the deepest part. Just a decent sized hole a yard or so down (perhaps a yard wide), line with landscape fabric, fill with large-ish gravel or rock, cover that with the same landscape fabric, use the soil dug up to raise the level of your yard in that area (may need or want to discard some or all of what you dig up and mix or replace with something more like topsoil or compost). Basically like a deep french drain but in a single spot. Lots of resources on the web under dry well. If it's not every year you likely don't need to get elaborate. The landscape fabric is just to keep the spaces between the gravel/rock from filling up with muck over time. I think may not work if the drainage areas around/water levels are just plain super high.

I would be surprised if the owners of that property do not know what is happening (it was indicated that the issue occurred for a month). I have been on the receiving and sending end of this kind of situation and everyone on both sides were aware and immediately initiated a resolution. The fact that it seems that they have not done anything about this, given the span of time, is suspect. Sorry, I still agree with Ben, but you have to live there and hopefully you already have a sense of or know these neighbors and what your next steps should be.

I just think that the flooding could possibly conjure up all kinds of liabilities and sometimes at the very least, complaints or remediation efforts, even if by you, may need to be "on record"… There are often guidelines or code for these sorts of things...

If this is naturally occuring and not a water line break or some type of leak then it is best to deal with it on your side rather than trying to get the neighbors to landscape against it. They could relandscape their side to direct all the water to your side by changing the slope.

We currently have large drywell system installed in a sunken courtyard. It works really well. Don't know if that is an option there.

On my previous property I was on a hill with the neighbor to my right higher than me and the one to my left lower than me. There was under ground water that flowed down hill under the houses. I had a sump pump around my foundation to take care of it and put it out to the street. But my back yard would drain to the downhill neighbors back yard. Instead of complaining to me about it they hired a company to come in and install a french drain system (on my property) while I was out of town. It was just on my side of the property line between the two houses.

When I got home and saw something had been done I asked them about it, thinking the landscape company had simply done the wrong house. They owned up to it, did not ask me to pay for it, and I gracefully accepted the free improvement. If they had wanted me to pay for it I might have been miffed. I expect when they consulted with a landscape company to solve their problem the company probably said it needed to be on the sloped part of the yard which was my yard and not the flat puddling part which was their yard. So talk to a couple of companies to find out what solutions are best for your particular problem.

Currently we have a neighbor with a sprinkler line break just on their side of the fence. It creates a permanent puddle. They complained to us that it was our sprinkler line so we turned ours off. The puddle formed when they had that zone going on their side. There is no puddle on our side but their puddle attracts mosquitos. We have communicated that the puddle formed when their zone was running and ours was off. And you can see that it is from their side. Around the heads on our side, no puddle. But they are old and haven't gotten it fixed. We even mentioned the name of the neighbor that we hire to do our underground fixes and only charges $65. So far no fix (for 2 years) but we can do no more.

Did the pond just appear? Or did you just move in and discover this feature? The first thing I’d ascertain is if the pond is intentional. Call the town code officer for information about ponds, permits, drainage. Ask the neighbor if their pond is manmade. Gather as much intelligence as you can before defining the problem or the mitigation. There are many possibilities. You need to know more to know how to navigate to the best place.

Yes I agree, talk to the neighbor first if you haven’t already, and see if they are willing to fix it on their own. I assumed , perhaps incorrectly, that there had already been a discussion with the neighbor.

hmm.... I would think a raised bed would help you out some.... I actually have a problem in part of my yard. I live on the IntraCostal.... when we have moon tides twice a year my soil gets really really wet.... it doesn't flood except when we had the moon tide with Storm Sandy (it became a hurricane for those in the NE) but while it was here it stayed right off of the coast, the tide would come in but couldn't get back out..... I had major flooding in that area.... also if we get major downpours it will flood but it drains pretty fast..... I call it Rose Pond.... anyway when I had HT's there they all died except The McCartney Rose. Since then I put in some David Austins. They handle the flooding much better than the HTs.... I guess they really like water..... Also, I found if I plant some annuals like Sweet Alyssum or Marine Heliotrope, it will help to "soak" up the water when it floods..... or at least I like to think it helps.

Just wanted to mention - there are two ducks in that picture! The female mallards are very well camouflaged! Maybe they will nest and produce ducklings..

Jackie

I had another thought - under the Obama administration, the Federal government claimed jurisdiction over this sort of "seasonal wetlands" anywhere in the country (yes, including in people's back yards!), and passed all sorts of draconian rules about what could be built near them, how you could not drain them, etc. Sounds impossible, but it is true - look it up. The current administration has reversed those rules, luckily, but if the Democrats get in again, they will probably restore them, so you might want to work extra hard to not have a seasonal pond in your back yard!

Jackie

I call BS.

Sasha Hammond They basically had a pond in the corner of their yard and ducks and frogs were swimming in it. They don’t take care of their yard needless to say.

Yes.

A pond with ducks and frogs. No need to broadcast what that means.

From your account, your yard is low man on the totem pole. Think of all the water falling from the heavens that would end up in, and flood, your yard if your neighbor's yard did not have that dependent zone sequestering water (which otherwise would end up flooding your yard). Does your yard have proper drainage?

Now and again we need discussions like the Rose forum. Thank you for posting it here.

This would be a good time to hear about your neighbor's "ugly bush breaking into" your fence.

Genus? Species? Named cultivar?

Is it possible the neighbor has that square shaped puddle/pond because they like hosting the wildlife like ducks and frogs?

Before you talk to your neighbors, I would note that your yard seems to be draining in to theirs. It looks like they have lower ground, (hence the big pond), and yours is higher so you just get one edge of the pond. You are contributing to their problem, rather than vice versa.

You could be a good neighbor by just fixing your own drainage problem so your water goes somewhere other than into their yard. Others have made good engineering suggestions that would accomplish that. Something that redirects the water via drains and / or pumps to the street would be ideal.

Then, I would do some raised beds on top of that, just to be safe. Your rose bushes are an investment for a decade or more - you want to keep them high and dry from whatever nature will throw at them during that time.

I don't think it's safe to plant any flowers there since you don't know why there was that much water for that much time in your garden. Your neighbour might have problems with its sump pumps, and it doesn't have anything with the year and the precipitations. If you don't have a good relationship with your neighbours, you can contact the guys from sumppumpadvisor.com; I always contact them when I have questions related to this topic. If you explain the situation to them, I am sure they'll understand where the problem is and how it's the best way to solve it.

We are dealing with the same issue from the vacant house next door. Everyone in the neighborhood has water issues and they either pump it up to the street or dig french drains and bury huge holding tanks. We gave 4 of those tanks and they are alwsys full. But, the house next door is in probate and the family that lived and died as owners never did a thing with their water and we are lower so we have a creek that continually runs

We have a big chunk of yard that is unusable until some new owners take over

It is a mucky mess

Oh, dear. I hope you get new neighbors soon, Kristine.

Me too. I would have a big chunk of yard for another deck. Yhat area is suppossed to be my secret garden not my secret rice paddy

How much standing water did you have in your yard? Other than breeding mosquitoes, I wouldn't worry about standing water in my neighbors yard, better theirs than yours . . . however, if you have drainage issues on your property, that's dependent on slope. I can't tell the slope, but from a casual glance, it looks like your yard is the higher ground so drains into theirs. I wouldn't plant a rose garden in an area of standing water. I'd either do a rain garden or a french drain, as some have suggested. Then plant the rose garden outside of that zone. The rain garden and/or french drain will hold and slowly release the water so they will take care of that part, leaving another higher ground area for the roses . . . Roses like moist conditions so if it's just occasionally for a few hours after a rain maybe not a big issue if the roses are the right kind. I love me some "Rosa palustris" which is the native swamp rose, it would do fine there, it is a stunning bloomer but not repeat. But of course roses hate dampness, so if the water is there for any length of time it's not going to work for other roses. Figure out a way to drain it away first, then deal with the roses part . . .

Kristine…lol