How to Create Your Own Rain Garden
Building a Residential Rain Garden 🍃
So, you want to build your own rain garden. Lucky for you, it isn't a painstaking process and once you've finished it, you'll find your yard to be prettier and more efficient than it was before!
Why Should I Build a Residential Rain Garden?
Well, not only is a rain garden a way to beautify your yard, but also a way to employ the use of natural processes by...- Temporarily holding and soaking in rain water runoff that flows
- Removing 90% of Nutrients and Chemicals
- Removing 80% of Sediments
- Draining 12-48 hours to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes
- Preserving native vegetation
- Providing wildlife habitats for birds, butterflies, and insects
Okay, I want to Build a Rain Garden. Where Should I put it? Where Should I Not put it?
When you are building a rain garden it is important to keep these points in mind about where and where not to build :
- They should be located in low lying sloped areas so water can pool up in there
- Should be 10 feet from a house or building
- Should be near impervious surfaces like driveways, roads, and sidewalks
- Do not build one over a septic system
- Do not build it if you live in an area where the seasonal high of a water table is within 24 inches of the soil surface
- Do not build next to building foundations
Now That I Know Where and Where not to Put It, How do I build it?
Building a Rain Garden is not as complicated as you may think. You can elect to build it yourself or hire landscapers to build it for you. Listed below is a simplified list on how you should go about building a rain garden:
- Locate a site that is a natural slope in the landscape
- Determine the size of the rain garden based on the location
- For Clay soils the garden should be 60% of the drainage area
- For Sandy soils the garden should be 20% of the drainage area
- For Loamy soils it can be sized between 20% and 60%
- It is important to know your soil type by testing the infiltration rate
- The lower the infiltration rate the larger the garden need to be
- You can test your infiltration by digging a hole that is 6-8 inches deep and filling it with water and observing how long it takes for the water to drain
- If it takes 12 hours or longer, it isn't suitable for a rain garden
- Once the garden has been planned it, you can start digging
- Start by removing soil so that the deepest part is about 8-10 inches deep
- bottom should be as level as possible
- extra soil removed should be used on the downhill side of the garden to create a berm
- Mix organic matter into the soil within the rain garden by spreading 2 - 4 inches of compost over the area and mixing it with the existing soil
- If soil is acidic add lime to neutralize the sample
- For soils with high clay content, remove 1- 2 inches of the soil and put porous rain garden soil
- A shallow swale or corrugated drain pipe should be set up to carry the water from the roof downspout to the rain garden
- Make sure the ground slopes away from the foundation, so water doesn't pool around it
- Establish a grass or groundwater border along the rain garden to slow the flow of water into the garden and do the same for the berm to stabilize it
- Select and plant drought tolerant, wet tolerant, and hearty plants.
- A mix of ornamental grasses, shrubs, and self seeding perennials is a good choice
- Once the plants are planted cover the garden with a 3 inch layer of mulch
- Best mulch choices are ones that are pine straws, wood chips, or shredded wood
- To maintain the garden remove,weeds regularly and replenish mulch as needed.
- Plan on providing an overflow path in case the rain garden overflows with water.
As you can see building a rain garden, while it looks like a daunting task, can be one that is worthwhile and beneficial to the environment. If you would like to see a real life example of a rain garden and see how it works, you can always drop by the Cobb County Water System's rain garden that is right next to the water quality lab.
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