Rain gardens: unique landscape feature

By PAM BAYTOS

OSU Ext. Master Gardener Volunteer

CANFIELD

A rain garden is a planted depression that retains rainwater and reduces water runoff from a residential yard or neighborhood.

It’s designed to temporarily capture rainwater that drains from a house roof, driveway, parking lot or open area.

Rain gardens allow households or buildings to deal with excessive rainwater runoff without burdening the public storm system and surface waters, which causes erosion, water pollution, flooding and diminished groundwater.

A rain garden is not a pond, water garden or wetland. It is dry most of the time and briefly holds water after a rain. In a properly sited and constructed rain garden, water disappears within 24 to 48 hours. Rain gardens differ from retention basins, and by letting the water slowly infiltrate into the soil, they do not allow mosquitoes to breed.

Rain gardens typically are planted with a mixture of native deep-rooted perennial flowers, ornamental grasses and woody shrubs that are adapted to wet and dry conditions.

So where do you start?

Find a suitable location for your first rain garden. It’s easiest to install a rain garden in an area of your yard where water already flows through. Your end goal is to reduce runoff.

You can identify a suitable area by examining your yard during a rain storm to see how water flows across it. It’s a good idea to plan your rain garden on a sheet of graph paper before you start digging. Keep in mind that rain gardens work best if they are curved and slightly irregularly shaped.

Rain gardens are relatively inexpensive and can be designed and installed with minimal training, tools and resources.

For detailed information on installing your rain garden, we have an OSU Extension manual that was developed in southwest Ohio. You can read or print the manual at http://go.osu.edu/raingardenmanual.