Hi!

We live in a pretty densely populated part of the Boston metro area and we have a walled off gravel bed in our front yard. We have gotten rid of most of the gravel with a view to replacing it with soil. It's around 10' square and there's only 6-8" of space for soil above some very densely pack rocky looking stuff (sorry, not so sure what it is!). So we are looking at plants that will thrive with shallow roots.

However. My big concern is that one of the roof drainpipes dumps into this bed and without the gravel, it will flood easily when it rains heavily. My plan was to use the remaining gravel to create a path around the edge of the bed for the water to drain into, and then add to the holes in the wall (there are only two right now and I don't think it is going to be enough). Does that sound like a good plan? The water drains into the back of the bed (near the house) and obviously I want it to drain out of the front to prevent basement flooding. The other thought I had was to extend the drain pipe under the soil to the front, where I would create a large hole in the front of the wall with some kind of filter to prevent soil loss.