Planting the rain garden is the fun part! A number of planting designs and lists of suggested plants are included at the end of this publication. Use these for ideas, but don’t be afraid to be creative – there’s no single best way to plant a rain garden. Anyone who has ever done any gardening will have no problem planting a rain garden, but a few basic reminders are listed below.
While rain gardens are a highly functional way to help protect water quality, they are also gardens and should be an attractive part of your yard and neighborhood. Think of the rain garden in the context of your home’s overall landscape design. Here are a few tips:
The surface area of the rain garden can be almost any size, but time and cost will always be important considerations in sizing decisions. Any reasonably sized rain garden will provide some storm water runoff control. A typical residential rain garden ranges from 100 to 300 square feet. Rain gardens can be smaller than 100 square feet, but very small gardens have little plant variety. If a rain garden is larger than 300 square feet it takes a lot more time to dig, is more difficult to make level, and could be hard on your budget.
Home rain gardens can be in one of two places – near the house to catch only roof runoff or farther out on the lawn to collect water from the lawn and roof.
Homeowners in many parts of the country are catching on to rain gardens – land-scaped areas planted to wild flowers and other native vegetation that soak up rain water, mainly from the roof of a house or other building. The rain garden fills with a few inches of water after a storm and the water slowly filters into the ground rather than running off to a storm drain. Compared to a conventional patch of lawn, a rain garden allows about 30% more water to soak into the ground.
