After the entire redo of the back yard, including the deepening of dirt, held into the beds by more and larger rocks, the run off problems we have always had was lessened considerably. Much of the running water was now directed into the beds where it could soak into them.
There was one place that kept washing out though. We keep two syrup tubs under the gutters that don't drain to the rain water collection, to catch that water. When they would over flow, the course they would take would wash with every rain. Lyn and I looked it over for months until we could both agree on a plan. It would include building more steps that would block the present run off direction and making a dry weather creek bed for the rain water to run off in a new direction to a rock walk way. That rock walk way went to the back gate and the water could get all the way out of the yard with out hurting any thing. Bold plan but a lot of work.
The tubs catch water from a very small part of the roof but it is still a lot of water. When the tubs run over, they now run down the creek. We've just recently had enough rain to see it all work and it worked great.
The rock steps in the left of the photo was the route the water used to take. The steps and the built up ground now block the water and it runs onto the rock walk way that we built years ago.
