Digging the Rain Garden

Thanks for guessing at my post the other day called Digging a Hole. Creative title right? Nan of Gardening Gone Wild, Tina of In the Garden and Gloria of Pollinators-Welcome all guessed right, it’s a rain garden. Our driveway is a slope and at the bottom of it is an area that collects and pools water after each rain. Rain gardens are a good solution for dealing with water runoff problems. They help to filter out the chemicals that run off our streets and driveways before the water enters our water supply. To do this rain garden I’ll need to construct a French Drain. If you would like to look back I mentioned the French drain I was planning on building in my post called The First Step to Recovery… That post also contains a picture of the drainage issue.

To review briefly I’ll place a layer of gravel in the trench I dig. Then I’ll place a perforated pipe through the trench toward the rain garden area. I’ll cover it with gravel, then landscape fabric, then top the planting areas and grass area with soil. The area next to the driveway I’ll top with decorative gravel. The landscape fabric will keep the dirt separate from the gravel which will improve drainage.

Now the fun part!
To me the fun part is putting in the plants for the rain garden area. I plan on the garden itself to be slightly higher (3″-4″) than the surrounding ground surface. This will help to define the bed a little more and give the plants a little more soil to root through. I need plants that like water but can tolerate drought. Kind of contradictory but believe it or not something comes to mind: ornamental grasses. This past fall I rescued a Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ (feather reed grass) and a Miscanthus sinesis ‘Zebrinus’ (Zebra Grass) from the big blue box home-improvement store for less than five dollars. I divided the Miscanthus into four plants, two of which are in my bird bath garden and the other two are eager awaiting homes. I’ll let these three plants find refuge in the rain garden. In addition to those two grasses I am considering a fountain grass of some sort. I’ll figure that out sometime this spring. The grasses can absorb a lot of moisture from the ground and tolerate our heavy heat in Tennessee. A great companion plant to the ornamental grass is the old standard and favorite rudbeckia. Black-eyed Susans, with their dark centers and yellow petals, would look great mixed in with ornamental grasses. I also have my eye on a particular annual salvia called Salvia splendens ‘Flare.’ This is an annual salvia (possibly a tender perennial) that sends up a red flower spike around 18 inches tall. I’m also thinking of some Zinnias since those are nearly foolproof!

4 thoughts on “Digging the Rain Garden”

  1. A rain garden! Cool! I have some other ideas for you for plants. Sounds like you are going semi formal so these might not work. I use Impatiens balsamina or Touch Me Nots in my little rain garden. They spread quite nicely and create a microclimate. It might be too sunny where your garden is located though. Another plant which likes wet areas is Queen of the Prairie and Joe Pye weed. The Joe Pye weed would especially look great with the ornamental grasses and brown eyes. Can’t wait to see how it turns out.

    So many people have problems with drainage. I get a lot of questions about water flow and always advise you can’t stop it, you need to manage and control it. That is what you are doing and I hope it works out great for you.

  2. You are right about the sun Tina. The spot where the garden will be is in full sun most of the day so the plants need to be able to tolerate full sun. I’m kind of leaning toward hot colors like red, orange and yellow. I forgot to mention the asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed) I was thinking about! Joe pye weed would be pretty good, although it’s mostly a pink isn’t it?

  3. Hot colors are great and Joe Pye might not fit in with the color, but it sure fits in with ornamental grass and even butterfly weed (which is usually out of bloom by the time the joe pye blooms.

    I really think you are making your rain garden too small to drain all of the water from your parking area and driveway. Always go bigger than what you think you need and 10’x5′ just doesn’t seem big enough. Not only that, but you need more room to plant stuff! Time will tell:)

  4. The 5×10 area is just a start. 🙂 I need to round out one side to create a sort of “V” shaped bed to achieve what I have in my head. Hopefully what I have in my head works! I’ll be doing some more excavating tomorrow and hopefully will get to the gravel part. I just ran out of daylight and energy to expand it any larger the other day. After our .26 inches of rain yesterday turned the hole into a pond which drained out by morning. It managed to keep all the water from pooling on the driveway, even without the parallel section being dug out. But you’re right, it should be a little bigger. Also I can always increase the above ground section to whatever size I need to fit more plants. 🙂

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