Rain garden
I got to make a rain garden today. It was a volunteer community event. We cleaned some of the grass then we dug a hole and created a mount on a sides. There is a pipe that takes all the rain water to the street and we cut that and attached a moving cap so the water flows into the pond. Then we rolled out paper and wet it and then coved it mulch, which came from the tree that was growing there and had to be cut. Next week we will be planting natives that will grow around and inside the rain garden. It was super cool and easy to make minus the roots that we had to deal with. I will post some pictures below. I wish, I had some before pictures, but they took the tree out this week and most of the grass too.
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That's cool! After participating in the project, I imagine you would have enough know how to build your own in your garden, too.
I made mine mostly by just reading a lot about it first when the idea first came to me. So I'm sure I did some things "wrong" -- a lot more "basic guidelines" have been published since I first built them. ...but one of my landscaping goals is to try to keep ALL the surface water on this property and not allow to run off, so in addition to the two rain gutter downspout rained gardens, I have a bog area that sequesters water in a wet area of the garden and various what I call "Swales" but here again, mine are not strictly by the definition.
I think one important aspect if you decide to build them in your garden is to consider what existing plants have been benefitting from the downspout rainwater BEFORE you change the water flow/supply. That consideration prevented me from building rain gardens at two of the house corners.
Hope you post pictures and let us know what kind of California natives were planted.
I made mine mostly by just reading a lot about it first when the idea first came to me. So I'm sure I did some things "wrong" -- a lot more "basic guidelines" have been published since I first built them. ...but one of my landscaping goals is to try to keep ALL the surface water on this property and not allow to run off, so in addition to the two rain gutter downspout rained gardens, I have a bog area that sequesters water in a wet area of the garden and various what I call "Swales" but here again, mine are not strictly by the definition.
I think one important aspect if you decide to build them in your garden is to consider what existing plants have been benefitting from the downspout rainwater BEFORE you change the water flow/supply. That consideration prevented me from building rain gardens at two of the house corners.
Hope you post pictures and let us know what kind of California natives were planted.
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