10 Best Betta Fish Tanks With Filter

Best Betta Fish Tanks With Filter in 2023

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Create an Easy Rain Garden Water Feature in Your Yard

A rain garden water feature uses the water from your gutters to create a unique landscaping element. No pumps, no filters, very little maintenance and you have the perfect garden feature!

A rain garden is a depression in the earth, carved out of the soil as a collection basin for the roof water diverted there by your gutter system. Surrounded by plantings that are naturally adapted to thrive in the alternately wet/dry environment created by a rain garden, it is a lovely landscaping element that attracts butterflies and birds, but more important than that, a rain garden captures the water from your downspouts that would normally be lost forever. It is a green thing to do!

Start by looking at your existing gutter system. If there is a downspout near a corner of your house where the grade slopes gradually away from the foundation naturally, you have the perfect spot. It may be necessary to rework the gutter system to deliver the rain water to the best location for your garden. It is sometimes necessary to improve the grade around your home so that the water does not pool against the foundation and create water problems in the basement or crawl space.

The gutter water can be diverted to the garden area with a downspout extension, easily camouflaged by stones or plantings, or by creating a sort of stream bed that directs the course of the water where it is wanted. Use a level when laying out your stream bed so that you have an gentle fall to the rain garden pool. Line the stream bed with rounded stones and river gravel to create a natural looking water course. You may want to use a strip of plastic pond liner fabric to line the stream bed, under the gravel and stones, but this is not always necessary.

The rain garden pool is a shallow depression in the soil, with an overflow outlet at one end, that will collect the water from a normal rain fall in your area. The garden can be any size that you like, although it is best to try and calculate the amount of water it will hold based on the rainfall amounts in your part of the country. It can be excavated by hand or with a small garden tractor to a depth of a foot or two, depending on the effect you are trying to create. Your garden pool can be round, meandering, or square and formal looking. The idea is not for the pool to hold the water for any length of time. The pool should fill in the rain and gradually seep away into the surrounding plantings and beds to create a unique habitat. The outlet of the pool will allow excess water during unusually heavy rains to flow away from the pool and the foundation of your home, usually into a grassy area.
If you want to slow the seepage rate, you can work some bentonite clay into the pond soil or install a simple plastic liner with a few holes punched in it to allow the water to escape slowly.

Cover the pond basin with a couple of inches of river gravel and edge it with rounded boulders to create a woodland pool look, or concrete pavers for a more formal style. Feel free to create island plantings on raised mounds in the pool area if you like.

The plants you choose for your garden will largely be dictated by the style you are trying to create. Typically, a rain garden is planted with prairie species that thrive in the alternate wet/dry environment of a rain garden. Ornamental grasses do very well, as do coreopsis, daylilly, echinacia, sedums, cactus, iris, creeping phlox, sage, redbud, dogwood, Japanese maple, etc. Be sure to ask at a local nursery what plants they would recommend that will do well in your climate zone.

Mulch your plants well. A good organic mulch such as hardwood bark chips or cypress mulch will help to retain the soil moisture and to suppress weed growth in your garden. The mulch will gradually decay into the soil and further improve the water holding ability of the soil. Be sure to add a new mulch covering each spring before your plants begin active growth.

If your soil is very poor, it will help to mix some well rotted manure or compost into the planting holes to give your plants a good rich environment for strong growth.

The only maintenance your rain garden will need is an occasional weeding when it is first established and adding mulch to the plantings once in a while. The prairie plants are tough and shouldn't need watering except in extremely dry conditions. A garden blower can be used to blow fall leaves from the basin in the fall and spring if you live in an area with deciduous trees.

Replacing your downspouts with rain chains will improve the "wateriness" of your rain garden considerably. Rain chains hang in place of your downspouts and divert the roof water into a basin that can be directed to overflow into your rain garden pool. Using rain chains will also eliminate the clogged gutters and downspouts that are such an aggravation to most homeowners. Talk to your local gutter installation company or garden center about rain chains. They can also be found on line.

Even without constant water your rain garden will give a watery feeling to your garden. The stream bed, rounded stones, and the plantings will all contribute to the water feature effect. When it rains the sound of the water trickling over the stones will be a welcome melody.