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In the wake of any flood damage, the priority is always to remove the standing water from inside your home. At some point, however, you will have to deal with repairing the flood damage to your garden. Do not postpone this unduly as timing is critical in any flood damage restoration, and delaying it can constitute a health risk to you and your family, especially to younger children. Most water in flooding rivers, lakes, streams, seawater and oceans contains at least some human or animal waste (and therefore pathogenic contaminants). Time and heat can actually transform this slightly contaminated Gray Water into heavily contaminated Black Water. The longer floodwater remains in your garden, the more of a health risk it becomes - especially when temperatures are warm.

If you will be repairing a garden damaged by Black Water flooding, such as sewage backup or sewage contaminated floodwaters, you must take additional special precautions. Wear protective clothing (coming into direct contact with sewage will lead to infection) and make sure to cover up any cuts or sores on your hands or fingers. After you have finished working, use disinfectant soap and a nailbrush and apply antibiotic ointment. Below are a few tips to help you repair flood damage to your garden:

Make the garden safe:

- Clear the ground of all potentially dangerous objects, including broken tree branches, debris etc. Rent a shop vac to remove all debris from your yard if you need to.

- Wash plants with clean water, from the hose, to remove all traces of contaminated floodwater.

- Empty any containers where floodwater has collected (plant pots, buckets etc). Even if your flood damage is caused by clean water (rain, for example), the standing water will quickly become a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

- If you have a water feature in your garden (a pond, for example), you should pump out the possibly contaminated floodwater and replace it with clean water.

Purchase Supplies:

- Before starting on the actual repair of your garden, you should buy a supply of compost-enriched soil as well as a supply of mulch (the quantity depends on the size of your garden, obviously). You will also need organic fertilizer and 'earth-friendly' fire ant bait.

Restoration:

- Now that you can safely work in your garden, start pruning broken shrub and tree branches (branches should be pruned at the point of connection with the trunk).

- Carefully inspect all shrubs, flowers and plants. The longer your garden has been wet, the more likely

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