Once upon a time, it rained in Texas. And when it did, our yard turned into a swamp.
Swamp city is not a great situation for anyone. After lots of planning and scheming, we decided installing a rain garden would be an effective and earth-friendly way to control the water flow. The idea is that by digging out a trench, you divert the water to a designated area, rather than letting it flow here, there and everywhere. Then, you fill said area with strategically placed rocks and native plants so it’s pretty to look at as well as being functional.
The Red Clay Valley Association encourages its residences to make rain gardens in small backyard depressions like this one.
From gardenfowl.com
Minnesota Public Radio did a neat feature on how to install backyard rain gardens, like this one, for its listeners.
Once again, we enlisted the help of my garden guru to figure out the best way to incorporate a rain garden into the back yard. Since the water seems pretty intent on puddling in one particular area, we thought, why challenge it? We opted to start there and then manipulate the existing landscape around it—making the rest of our yard accoutrement work with the soon-to-be rain garden rather than the other way around. Once that was determined, the only thing left to do was start digging.
