what type of house are you staying? Detached, Semi-D, terrace? What is your house size and land size..

U wanted to do landscape izzit ?

I am assuming that your planned 2' land for gardening would be tufted and not concreted or tiled.

You could always make the garden area lower than the rest of the car porch (concrete or tile surface). So, when it rains the water from the garden would not flow to the tiled/ concrete area.

As for drainage for the garden, you could use underground drainage.

in proper term, an 'underground' drain is call sub-soil drainage. It works by draining excess water from soil to your common drain. Basically it's a perforated pvc pipe with layer of membrane wrap around it. It is usually place abt 5'-8' top grass level depending on the level of your common drain. All soil need some sort of drainage to drain excess water.

If someone say no need for such area even it's just a small lawn patch, I think something is wrong there, especially when we are in Malaysia where rain is constant. Beside for all new development, most likely the land you are sitting on is of yellow soil/clay like soil, so it cannot absorb water so much.

Good luck to you!

just 2' space. better cement it completely & put some potted plants.

not I don't encourage u to do gardening/landscaping.

but i've seen too many example of house owners regretting their decision. they are too lazy to maintain the green area of their house & at the same time too stingy to pay someone else to do it.

maxim concept is correct, even the area is small, proper drainage is still necessary, u never know wat is underneath the ground.

this is what i do for my 5x8 lawn

1. get the indon worker to dig it 6-8 inch below ground level
2. undersoil piping which drains the water to longkang (drilled with 20 cents coin size hole)
3. a layer of stone, small sized
4. a layer of PVC mesh
5. a layer of soft sand
6. a layer of planting soil
7. pearl grass!

all done with proper leveling
do not worry about lalang just treat it as some exercise on Sunday morning

as expected, u don't know anything about maintaining a green area.