Drainage/Sinkhole Beside Driveway. What do I do?

Good morning all.

I've been a lurker for a while. Many thanks for the tips and comments of everyone who contributes.

We've moved to a house in Georgia that is situated on a sloped lot right to left. When I needed to get a riding lawnmower for this task, the recommendations here were solid gold to me.

We've had a really wet Spring/Summer. Major rains regularly. I've noticed something and I have no idea what to do about it.

It's currently very dry and along the left side of my driveway (about 8 feet out from the house) where the cross driveway rainwater drainage tends to collect, there's a small hole (about 2 inches in diameter) and another one just like it about 6 inches away. I probed the hole and they are at least 8 inches deep, and may turn or otherwise continue.

How much panic should I be feeling?

My first reaction was "maybe I should pick up some quickcrete and start filling these so that no more runoff damage occurs. But I have no idea if that's the right thing to do.

My second reaction was to install a french drain, but for where this problem is located, there's no exit. There's a 14 foot by 10 foot triangle of flowerbed that is contained between poured concrete driveway and walkways.

My third reaction was to start digging and find out what is going on underground.


Any sage advice or suggestions would be much appreciated. Where possible I like to solve things myself, so I'd like to not call in a service unless this is too serious to be a DIY approach.

Thanks much,
-Tom

Around here a couple 2 inch holes 8 inches deep are as common as piles of dog poo. Most of them are from rodents. Some of them are from Cicada killers who made the original hole and then predators came along to dig up the killers nest with the cicada and larvae inside. Some are just old burrows that wash out. Now and then an old prairie dog hole will wash out and those go down a long ways. Around here small holes are plugged with some dirt and a bit of tamping. If they wash out then some plastic bag goes down followed by dirt and tamping. Prairie dog holes that just never seem to fill up after a rain are packed with gunny sacks and bran. So are old well casings. If the ground around the hole is flowing into the small holes and getting a lot lower then there is a lot more concern. The dirt is being washed down into something. In some parts of the country this is caused by poor backfilling of service ditches. That used to be common as no contractor wanted to wait for the dirt to settle before he leveled. Now days not so common as codes enforce more packing, and lawsuits are more common not to mention a great deal better and less labor intensive machinery to do the packing.