Our Services

Drainage Solutions

Serving Bethesda, Rockville and nearby Montgomery County, MD.

What we do

  • Reading the whole property to find where water actually comes from and goes
  • French drains and channel drains to intercept and carry water away
  • Dry wells and catch basins to collect and release it safely

Planning and pricing

Standing water in the wrong places causes extensive and varied problems, and they are complicated enough that the average lawn service tends to ignore them. A targeted dry well is one job and a whole-yard system that grades and drains together is quite another, so the ranges below are a starting point and not a quote.

Gravel placed over landscape fabric in a drainage trench

Drainage issues such as standing water in the wrong places cause extensive and varied problems. They are complicated and often ignored by average lawn maintenance services. Drainage issues can destroy all of the work you’ve put into your beautiful new beds and landscaping. They can cause erosion, unsightly mold, and general nuisance and safety issues.

At Nature’s Friends, we know how to avoid drainage problems during our initial designs and installation, by paying attention carefully to the pitch, grade, water flow, and precise leveling of any project. We are experts at correcting existing problems with drainage through a variety of creative solutions.

Common drainage problems we solve:

  • Erosion issues
  • Mold issues at the side of the house
  • Basement leaks
  • Puddles or “rivers” through your yard
  • Perpetually icy/slippery surfaces
  • Mulch that won’t stay in place
  • Erosion at fences or retaining walls
  • Standing water/mosquito issues
  • Roots to bushes flooded and dying

Ideally we can solve your issues with passive drainage solutions, with elevation changes and drainage channels installed. Other issues will require active solutions that require pipes and pumps. We will evaluate your challenge and make recommendations, discussing solutions with you. Your potential solution could involve catch basins, French drains, channel drains, sump pumps, additional down spouts, re-leveling, or retaining walls.

We have 20+ years experience in landscape design and have run across many complicated drainage issues, and some very simple ones. Don’t ignore standing water, flooding, and erosion in your yard. Call us and let us change the water flow and make your space welcoming and safe.

Follow the runoff before choosing a drain

First identify the water’s source, route and possible outlet. Regrading may help one yard; another may need a drain or a planting approach. Montgomery County RainScapes lists stormwater gardens and other eligible practices, but the rebate excludes Rockville, Gaithersburg and Takoma Park parcels and eligibility must be checked before work. If the plan involves substantial soil disturbance, check the relevant permit authority. See grading and the Silver Spring planning notes.

Gallery and visual examples

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The problem most crews ignore

Drainage issues can destroy all the work you have put into your beds and your landscaping, they cause erosion, unsightly mold, and general nuisance and safety issues. Here at Nature's Friends we take them seriously, because getting water to behave itself is honestly some of the most valuable work we do on a property.

How we solve it

  • Reading the whole property to find where water actually comes from and goes
  • French drains and channel drains to intercept and carry water away
  • Dry wells and catch basins to collect and release it safely
  • Regrading and swales so the ground does the work before a pipe has to
  • Downspout and gutter tie-ins that move roof water well clear of the house

Why a proper diagnosis pays for itself

Don't try to drop a French drain into a problem you have not properly diagnosed, it just won't hold up. The first thing to evaluate is where the water is really coming from and the path it wants to take, and then we fix that, which is a good part of why our solutions tend to last instead of turning back up next spring.

2026 Pricing Guide

Drainage Solutions — What It Costs

2026 ranges for our area. Drainage is priced by how much water you have and how far it has to travel to somewhere safe.

Service Level Typical 2026 Range
Dry well / catch basin $1,200 – $4,500
French drain (installed) $30 – $60 / ft
Whole-yard drainage system $6,000 – $18,000

We always look at grading first — sometimes the cheapest fix is giving the water a better path, not adding a pipe.

Ranges are informational 2026 estimates for professionally installed work in the Bethesda & Montgomery County area. Every project is different — contact us for a free, itemized quote.

Good to Know

Drainage Solutions — FAQ

Different pieces of ground have different properties, and these have a big impact on how the ground responds to a hard rain. Around here it is usually some mix of the ground sloping the wrong way, the heavy clay soil that drains so slowly, and roof water getting dumped too close to the house, and which one is really driving it is why we would rather come take a look than guess.

Sometimes it is precisely the right answer and sometimes the real fix is regrading, or a dry well, or just moving the downspouts. A French drain is one tool among several, so we work out where the water is coming from first and then pick the fix that actually matches what we find, rather than reaching for the same thing every time.

A good deal of the time, yes, because so much basement water actually starts outside, with the grading and the roof runoff sending water right at the foundation. Correcting that on the outside is often the very piece that finally makes the difference, and it is work we end up doing pretty routinely.

There is some digging involved, no getting around that part, but we keep it as tidy as we can and we put the surface back when the work is done. On most jobs the lawn knits itself back over the trench line inside of a season and you would be hard pressed to see where it ran.

What We Do

Our Services

01 Design & Installation 02 Excavation 03 Grading 04 Hardscaping 05 Aeration & Seeding 06 Fencing 07 Drainage Solutions 08 Tree Services

Where We Work

Serving Montgomery County

Proudly serving homeowners and businesses across the greater Montgomery County area.

Bethesda
Maryland
Rockville
Maryland
Silver Spring
Maryland
Garrett Park
Maryland
Chevy Chase
Maryland
Kensington
Maryland
Potomac
Maryland
North Bethesda
Maryland

Don’t see your area? Contact us — we may still serve your neighborhood.