Rain Gardens Create Marsh Ecosystems
Rain Gardening is a Beautiful Way to Control Storm Water Flow
Feb 13, 2009
Plants have been filtering water for a long time. Before people invented drains to move water, plants caught that water and returned it slowly to the soil. Restore some of the natural balance of plants and water flow with a rain garden.
What is a Rain Garden?
A rain garden is a water or wetland garden that features carefully-chosen plants that have one common feature: they help water soak into the ground. By allowing stormwater runoff to soak into the ground, a rain garden reduces the need for storm drains. Storm drains move water very quickly from the ground into pipes, removing it from yards and groundwater.
Why Plant a Rain Garden?
It is important to have water in a garden. A carefully-designed rain garden can steward moisture for other garden plants. It helps build soil moisture by slowly collecting water, moving it down into the soil. Well-developed roots also create pockets of air in the soil, distributing water amongst garden plants.
Rain gardens also prevent erosion. Tiles and other concrete surfaces are impervious to water. Water either pools on the surfaces or moves quickly downhill if the concrete is on a slope. By replacing concrete surfaces with plants that slow down the water, rain gardens reduce soil erosion.
Mostly importantly, rain gardens are also beautiful. They feature marsh and streamside plants and offer a wonderful opportunity for gardeners to explore the wetter side of gardening in their particular area.
The Location of the Rain Garden
Plant a rain garden in a place where a drain might be located. If there is a wet area at the end of a parking lot, flatten the curb and allow water to flow onto marsh plants. Locate a rain garden underneath a drain pipe next to a house in an area where one might place a small drain. Work with the lay of the land to choose an area that is a problem area for moisture, then turn it into an opportunity and build a rain garden. Those developing rain gardens in a newer development can use terraces and swales to strategically move water to the garden.
Choosing Plants for a Rain Garden
The specific choice of plants for the rain garden will vary depending on the location of the garden. A gardener in Arizona will need to choose very different plants than one in the temperate rainforest, for example. Look at the plants that grow on the edges of local wetlands. These include sedges, rushes, and ferns. Depending on the location, small pioneer tree species will also do, but these may not be a good long-term choice if the garden is very close to a house.
In a temperate climate, choices for a rain garden might include a very moist area of cattails and other rushes and sedges. Surrounding that place plants that enjoy getting their feet wet: ostrich ferns, maidenhair ferns, perhaps a larger shrub such as hardhack. Finally, the rain garden can taper into small early successional trees like alder or into a smaller, brightly-colored meadow area covered in wildlflowers. Here are some lovely examples of rain gardens from the Rain Garden Network.
Care and Maintenance of the Rain Garden
The rain garden needs loving care. If the flow in the garden changes, the garden may need to change places. If water is seasonal, this might call for a change in species to ones that can deal with some dry periods. Instead of rushes, ferns would be a better choice. Make sure that plants that enjoy more dry than wet are not being drowned in the rain garden. Create a larger pond and marsh area in the center with additional rushes and sedges if it appears that plants are dying from overwatering.
With some strategic placement and creative planting, a rain garden can harvest water for a garden, keep water off the pavement, and act as a beautiful addition to a water garden.
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