Well--I did this last year.
Had an area between the house and the sidewalk around my porch filled with nasty, clay/silt back-fill--gummy muck when wet, like concrete when dry.
Dug out to about 2 and 1/2' by the foundation and sloped the 'floor' away from the porch to the sidewalk to about 4'--filled the whole thing back with amended 'soil' including a lot of compost and grit.
So, effectively, I have created a giant bathtub on each side of the porch with well drained soil with no-where to drain to...
So far, everything I planted in there did fine last summer and seems to have made it thru the winter as well...time will tell.
When I planted some bulbs in there last fall, I noticed the amended area was in fact more moist than other areas, but it certainly wasn't soggy.
This may or may not work for me in the long run--but the one saving grace is that we don't get much annual precipitation around here. I figure as long as I don't over irrigate it, it will probably work out better for me than that muck/concrete crap I was dealing with before.
