What is a rain garden?

A Win-Win for water!

It’s  raining this week where I live. How can we use all this water rushing into the storm drains and at the same time improve the quality of the water runs from our roofs, sidewalks, driveways and streets? This water picks up many pollutants as it races to our lakes and rivers. There are things we can do to lessen this pollution such as sweeping our driveways and sidewalks and not using chemicals on our lawns. A good way to clean this polluted run-off is to direct the water into a garden, a rain garden.  Today as it rains I can see the water rush into my rain gardens where my deep-rooted plants help clean this water as it drains into the earth below.  This past week I have been part of a team that installed two rain gardens. Both gardens captured water that would run into the Mississippi River. We had fun,  and were thrilled we helped to “plant for clean water.”

What is a rain garden?
The water that runs off our houses sidewalks, driveways and streets contains pollutants that run directly into our streams and lakes. A rain garden captures this water and the plants in the garden actually purify the water filtering out the pollutants. Like a friend said, “It’s like magic!”
An aspect of climate change is we can go for months without any precipitation then watch out…. inundation, too much rain. Rain gardens are a valuable tool to use and manage the water that falls on our properties. The plants should not need to be watered so we conserve water

Advantages of rain gardens:
1. They conserve water by managing rainfall

2. Rain gardens filter out pollutants

3. Blooming plants add beauty to your yard

4. Rain gardens often use native plants that bees, birds and butterflies love.

Simple steps to creating a rain garden:

1. Remove the sod and dig a hole. It must be at least 10 feet from your house and where you can direct a drain-spout, driveway or sidewalk to drain rain water.  Most rain garden holes are about 12 inches deep with wide 3 feet slanted sides surrounding the garden.  The bottom of the garden should be flat.

2. Mix in about one inch of compost to the bottom and sides of your new garden

3. Cover the garden with a layer of several inches of double or triple shredded mulch.

4. Plant deep-rooted plants. Most of the plants you love will work matching  the degree of sun and shade.  Also, always work to have a variety of plants that bloom at different times for the bees and butterflies.The bottom plants need to be water tolerant.  Some bottom plants I have used are: liatris, swamp milkweed, turtlehead, Culver’s root, blue flag iris, sensitive fern, cardinal-flower, blue lobelia and many kinds of sedges.

5..  Water–If it is dry, you need to water the new plants for the first couple of months.

And from National Geographic, other ways to conserve water

From the Washington Post on managing water in your yard.

Questions? Leave a comment