At a typical home, rainwater gushes out of the downspout, across the lawn, into the street, and down a storm drain — never to be thought of by the homeowner again. What they’re probably not considering is pollution from storm drains is dumped into local streams, rivers, and bays. The clever few take rainfall and build rain gardens, and here’s why:
- Your simple gutter water can be diverted into a visually stunning garden. Soil in the planting beds works like a sponge, filtering the water and allowing it to percolate into the surrounding area.
- Because rain gardens capture and filter water from roofs, driveways, and parking lots, they actually improve water quality in nearby bodies of water.
- You can inexpensively store over one hundred gallons of collected water to use for your garden and other outdoor purposes.
Tips on How to Build a Rain Garden for a Sustainable Landscape
Before you begin, ask your local Cooperative Extension Office to inform you about soil mix, garden size, and plants for your specific area. Start by obtaining one or more water storage barrels. You can acquire them used or online; just be sure to thoroughly clean them with soapy water. A barrel that can hold between 30 and 55 gallons is best, and you can connect two or three together as part of the same water collection system.
Creating a rich plant basin to collect and filter storm water involves three planting zones for wet, semi-wet, and dry conditions. When choosing native plants for your rain garden, you’ll need to consider the height, bloom time, color, and overall texture of each plant. Choosing plants that bloom at different times will result in a beautiful, long flowering season.
To give your rain garden the best chance of flourishing, seek out an area of your landscape that isn’t already overly soggy. We also suggest selecting plants that have a well-established root system. Generally, plants need one inch of water per week immediately after planting, so be sure to baby them!
Contact Dargan Landscape Architects today to start planning your sustainable rain garden.
I am about to have a lot of personalized landscaping done on my property. I really want to incorporate something like this when we have all of that work done. I love sustainability and feel that it is so important to take care of the earth that we have. I have been thinking about how much rain water seems to go to waste when we could utilize it when it comes down. Are there any more ideas like this that we could use but on a larger scale?
A rain garden is a great way to grown your favorite plants and still be ecologically friendly. They look beautiful too! Thanks so much for the idea.
I like how you said, “Your simple gutter water can be diverted into a visually stunning garden.” That is really cool. I love this idea and it is perfect for my home. We get a pretty decent amount of rain and not a lot of space. My mother was really big into gardening growing up, she always had the coolest designs in our front yard. Do you know if if would be a good idea to plant potato vines in a set up like this?
I love the idea of landscape design with the goal of having rain water be a central part of it. It would be a great way to be environmentally friendly. It also looks like it would be super low maintenance which is always a plus.
This would be a great DIY project for me. I’m a novice when it comes to landscaping, gardening, and just doing things in general. This, however, seems simple enough. Thanks for sharing!
This is a really cool idea! I’m always looking for ways to make my projects in the yard more self-sustaining. With something like this, I can almost set my plants and forget it when it comes to watering. I’ll have to look into something like this for my yard. Thanks for the idea!
Getting plants that bloom at different times is a great idea for getting a long flowering season. I hate when I plant one thing that blooms from April to May and then dies after that leaving my garden looking dead. This year when I try this rain garden landscaping I’m going to get flowers that bloom at different times. Is asking the internet or local people more effective for finding out the right plants for my area?
Creating a rain garden using filtered water that falls from my roof, driveway, and parking lots seems like a really interesting concept. This could be a good way to have an environmentally sustainable garden by making good use of rainwater that would otherwise just evaporate from my driveway, or collect in my gutter. It’s good to know that using a water storing barrel that can hold thirty to fifty five gallons seems like a good way to start off this project. Maybe I should try this out so that I can use less water to have my garden.
I love the idea of having a rain garden, but I would like to know if there’s a way to do it without collecting water in barrels? I know that in some states that is illegal. I’ll have to check for my state, but I do wonder if there is a way to do it without collection regardless. It sounds like choosing plants will be a little more complex than what I initially imagined, as well. I might have to hire a landscaper to help me figure out the best combination.
I think this is a genius idea! I live in a dry climate, so I may not get as much water, but the roof is a pretty big area for catching water. I’m sure I could still get quite a bit. My parents have a big garden, I should tell them about this. Thanks!
I love the idea of taking the rainwater from the gutters and distributing it into a rain garden. When I start my landscape renovation, I hope to add a couple of gardens to the side of my home. Would it be a good idea to add planters instead of planting into the ground?
This is just brilliant, people are so smart to just redirect gutter pipes to a mini garden. My husband and I have been searching for landscaping ideas, and I think that this one would be fun to use. I’ll have to show him this creative idea later, I’m sure that he’d love it.