Landscape designer in Cypress

Harris County requires a permit for all development, which includes structures, grading, paving and fill. Adding a patio or carport to a house needs a permit with a cost and scope of work. A driveway built in the county right-of-way, the strip between the property line and the street, needs one too. A residential fence outside the special flood hazard area does not.

Fill comes with rules. Placing fill on a lot must not send runoff onto a neighbor, and a site drainage plan is required even outside the floodplain. Inside the 100-year floodplain, drawings must come from a registered architect or engineer, and fill is never allowed in a floodway. We check the flood map for every Cypress property before we plan grading.

The Cypress Creek watershed covers 267 square miles of northwest Harris County and reaches into Waller County. Developed land in the watershed grew from about 18 percent in 1996 to as much as 52 percent by 2018, and more than 8,700 homes along Cypress Creek flooded in Harvey, with about 1,700 in the 2016 Tax Day storm. The county is adding detention along the creek, and Little Cypress Creek has its own program of regional detention basins.

On a single lot, flooding usually starts with water that has nowhere to go: roof runoff dumped beside the slab, a yard graded toward the house, or a side yard that stays wet for days. French drain installation, catch basin installation and rainwater drainage systems carry it to the street before it becomes a foundation problem.

The Cyfair soil series is named for this area: a loamy surface over loam to clay loam that drains slowly, with a seasonal perched water table 12 to 36 inches down, usually January through April. That is why Cypress yards can hold water for weeks in late winter even without a big storm.

For drainage, it means pipe and basins sit in soil that may already be wet, so we set slopes and outlets for that, not for dry ground. For hardscape, it means compacted base and good pitch matter more than the surface material. See yard drainage solutions and paver installation.

Bridgeland covers about 11,400 acres with more than 3,000 acres of lakes, trails and open space, and Towne Lake is built around a 300 acre lake. Many Cypress subdivisions drain to man-made lakes, so outlets from a yard often tie into a system the community maintains. HOAs in these communities review exterior changes, and we prepare drawings and material selections for that review as part of the design.

The most common Cypress requests pair drainage with outdoor living: a backyard that drains, a patio pitched away from the house, and a cover for summer shade. It all runs through our landscape design process and one crew.

• Drainage tied to the street or community lake outfallOutfallThe final point where collected water leaves the system, such as a street curb, storm sewer or approved ditch. In practice: A drainage system is only as good as its outfall. If the outfall is too high or blocked, the water backs up.
• Patios and covers permitted through Harris County
• Grading that follows the county's fill rules
• Planting and lawn that tolerate wet winters