I recently bought a new townhouse that has a small yard between the
house and the garage. Most of the yard is a flagstone patio, but there
is one 7x10 planter and a side yard by the garage that is 4x15. I have
small dogs and wanted to have some grass for them to play in so I
conditioned the soil in the side yard and laid sod. This went fine
except that the ground is always a little mushy when you step on it.
More on that in a sec.

The planter used to have many various plants and a waterfall in it.
Everything was dead due to lack of water, so I dug it all out. The
level of the planter was about 2 feet below the level of the brick
surrounding the planter. I filled it up an extra foot with soil,
planted some plants and a small tree around the edges. In the middle I
laid more sod. Everything was beautiful for about a week. Then the
grass started to die and I noticed a funky smell from the lawn. I did
a little investigation and there was some mold around the plants. I
then adjusted my watering schedule to twice a week for 10 minutes. Now
everything is starting to die, but the ground is still wet.

Someone told me that I didn't have any drainage in the planter so
everything was decomposing. There isn't any drain from the planter but
I don't think the bottom of it is cement. I just figured the water
would continue to soak down or evaporate.

Do I need better drainage in these 2 areas? If so, any ideas on how to
drain the planter? The patio is level with the top of the planter with
steps down to the garage. The wall around the planter is stucco.

Any advice is appreciated...

Thanks,

Lori