Rain gardens

In this backyard jungle, there is a “water feature” (stagnant pond) to the left of the arbor, an obvious target to replace with a rain garden.

Rain garden is a new term for me.  My friend Rich introduced it to me a few years ago when he built one, but I promptly forgot what its purpose was.

I shouldn’t have.  This has become an important part of water management both in cities, where storm drains and sewers are at risk of crossing paths, and in suburbs, where paved mall parking lots and McMansion rooftops shed water onto a diminishing recipient green field.

And I have immediate family members with civil engineering degrees, one of whom wrote his master’s thesis on water percolation rates into soil.  How could I be so oblivious?

Well, This Odd House seems like a natural for making a rain garden.  The flat roof drains to a single downspout.  There is a former “water feature” in the back yard that through negligence, has turned into a mosquito incubation system.  My plan then is to convert the mosquito pond into a native planting that can take the occasional large influx of water from the roof.

It may not be this year (though the mosquito pond has to go).  And it is not really that complicated.  There are many resources on this.

And Rich promises to share some plants from his over-thriving rain garden.