Rain Gardens
The idea of rain gardens is pretty simple but the impact is enviromentally sound. Basically, the concept is to take the runoff water from rooftops and disperse it throughout an array of deep rooted plants in a specially designed garden, so that we reduce the quantity of water runoff filling our sewers that eventually lead to overflow, pollution, high volumn on a already stressed sewer system and eventually dispersal into our lakes and streams that have picked up contaminants along the way. The construction process goes as follows:
- First we have a consultation to determine where and how to design and construct your rain garden, dependant on roof pitch and volumn of water it will allow.
- Then we determine what style of garden is best, such as a Formal garden or a Naturlistic garden. This is an option chosen by the homeowner that will best coincide with there own personal tastes. At the same time we will find out if a full sun, shade, part sun, or part shade will work best. This will also help in the plant selection.
- Then the excavation begins on the basin of the garden bed. This is carefully done in accordance with pitch and depth of the bed for the amount of water that will be absorbed.
- A special blend of soils is used for maximum drainage and absorbtion for the plants to take root.
- Then finally mulch is installed in the bed and the downspout is disconnected and re-routed to the newly installed rain garden.
The installation for a 200 square foot bed usually only takes about a half day to a day to complete. But the effects will have a long term effect on our enviroment. You can have the beauty of a colorful plant bed and take a step towards helping our local city's and our lakes and streams.
Some of the plants used in the rain gardens, there are typically over 14 different type of plants that are used.