The New Eco-Friendly Trend for Your Home: Rain Gardens

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Not only are rain gardens an appealing landscape element that bring life to your yard, but they help absorb and reduce the amount of water that reaches your home's foundation.

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A new trend in home yard maintenance is popping up in the form of rain gardens. Rain gardens are a depressed area in the landscape that collects rain water from a roof, driveway or street and allows it to soak into the ground. Planted with grasses and flowering perennials, rain gardens act like a sponge and a natural sifter to help filter out pollutants in runoff, allowing for the cleaned water to slowly permeate into the surrounding soil.

You can install a rain garden on flat or sloped land, and it can be designed to take the shape of a ditch or pond. Installing strong native plants in the path of water runoff reduces the amount of water that reaches your house and helps prevent flooding or seepage into your basement, as well as nurtures plant life in your yard. Rain gardens will also provide food and a home for butterflies, birds and other wildlife.    

Below are some quick steps that you can follow to build your own rain garden:

1. Find a site that can absorb water (between 10 and 30 feet away from your home).
2. Determine the size and shape of your rain garden.
3. Remove the grass where your rain garden will be located.
4. Excavate the basin with a shovel or an excavator (9 to 15 inches deep should suffice in most cases).
5. Dig a trench and lay the inlet pipe that will carry water from one or more downspouts away from your house and to the rain garden.
6. Fill the basin with rain-garden soil except for the top 6 to 12 inches of the excavated area.
7. Add plants, grouping them in zones based upon each plant’s tolerance for thriving in a wet environment.
8. Add a three-inch layer mulch around the plants to prevent weeds from sprouting and to keep the soil moist.
9. Weed and prune the rain garden as it grows, as well as check the mulch depth each year and replenish as necessary.
10. Enjoy your new rain garden!