Impervious surfaces, like parking lots, driveways, and walkways, make it difficult for stormwater to flow toward soil and seep into the ground. But by including rain gardens in your landscape design, this becomes less of a problem. Further, you’ll enjoy several environmental benefits when you include one in your lawn, like soaking up excessive stormwater on your property and containing runoff from pollutants and pesticides. Of course, there is also the beauty of adding more garden space to your yard.
You may have heard of residential rain gardens but don’t really get what makes it different from other landscape designs. Below, AD covers everything you need to know about these yard features to help you get started before designing your own rain garden.
What is a rain garden?
To the untrained eye, a rain garden might look similar to any other ornamental garden or intentionally planted space. “It may contain ornamental plants, native plans, or food growing plants,” explains Kory Russel, an assistant professor of landscape architecture and environmental studies at the University of Oregon. However, the primary difference in this garden feature from others is the intent.
Rain gardens are designed to capture and filter stormwater before releasing it back into the soil. Not only is this beneficial to the plants in your yard, it can eliminate flooded areas in your landscape design. “The goal of a rain garden is really about infiltrating runoff from from whatever buildings or hardscapes are around it,” Russel adds.
How do rain gardens work?
In an urban or suburban setting, hard surfaces like asphalt parking lots don’t allow the soil to soak up stormwater (another term for the water that pours out your gutters and downspouts during a rainstorm). That stormwater runoff, if not absorbed into the earth or diverted into a storm drain, needs to go somewhere. That’s where rain gardens come into play. Usually planted in shallow depressions, water can be diverted to them, where they soak up rain as it falls, then dry out after precipitation events.
What are the benefits of rain gardens?
Rain gardens provide a multitude of environmental benefits for your property and surrounding community.
Stormwater management is a huge advantage of having your own rain garden. If stormwater isn’t carried away or soaked into the ground, it can cause flooding where it lands or dikes. Along the way, that rainwater runoff picks up and carries a nasty concoction of any substance it passes: pesticides, fertilizer, dirt, dog poop, pollutants, and literally anything else lightweight or small enough to be carried by water.
Rain gardens help absorb that stormwater and in the process reduce flood risk, improve water quality in nearby waterways, and help recharge groundwater.
They also create new habitat for local wildlife. And considering “we’re going through a mass extinction event and, unfortunately, we’re losing a lot of species because of things like climate change and development,” every bit helps, says Jake Fox, the project director and landscape architect at Waterstreet Studio in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Do rain gardens attract mosquitoes?
In short, rain gardens won’t attract mosquitoes if they’re designed and maintained properly, as the rainwater should infiltrate into the ground fast enough.
