Rain Garden Design: Working With Water

As our news feeds, and possibly lives, are inundated with floods, rain garden design becomes an important skill for climate resiliency. Creating a rain garden helps us to work with water to enhance the Land where we live as well as our watersheds while mitigating the impacts of large rainstorms.

After living at Heart Springs Sanctuary for a year, we experienced our first large rain event and flood, which was quickly followed by another. During the recovery from these, it became apparent that the Land wanted a rain garden. Designing and building this garden is one of the largest and most beneficial projects we’ve done here. Every time there is a deluge, I am so grateful that we listened to the Nature Spirits and created the rain garden. I know that the Land and creek and ultimately, the Chesapeake Bay are healthier because of our (not so) little garden.

What is a Rain Garden

A rain garden is a designated area designed to capture and filter rain run-off. The garden includes Plants who thrive with (or at least tolerate) both large quantities of water (i.e., having wet feet) and drought. The Plants aid in capturing and filtering the stormwater while also offering beauty and food for birds and pollinators.

Rainwater gardens greatly vary in size from as small as a 2’ diameter planting located at the base of a downspout to multiple acres. Therefore, they are useful on both an individual and municipal scale. The original rain garden design at Heart Springs Sanctuary was about 30’ x 50’. However, we have continued to add to this in different phases always observing the flow of rainwater during and after a storm, as well as listening to the Land.

Rain Garden Benefits

In the age of climate change, managing water is a primary focus. We all know that rising temperatures cause glaciers to melt. Which means that we now have more water in liquid form, causing sea levels to rise — a major concern for islands and coastal areas. However, rising temperatures also result in greater evaporation and warmer air holds more moisture manifesting in more frequent and intense rainstorms. These deluges can impact us even if we do not live near a water source or in a floodplain.

In an ideal situation, we receive a gentle and slow rain who falls on vegetation softening the impact of the drops on the ground. Water not immediately absorbed by Plants seeps into the earth. The soil soaks up this water like a sponge, some of which is stored for the Plants, some trickles deeper refilling our aquifers, and some will seep back out in springs and other sources feeding our creeks and watershed.

A deluge acts very differently. (Think of trying to drink from a firehose versus a water fountain.) The intensity of the water overwhelms. The drops themselves compress and break up the soil resulting in both erosion and reduction of absorption rate. Very little of this water absorbs into the immediate environment nor filters down to the aquifers. Instead, this water flows in large quantities causing flash floods and ultimately resulting in the flooding of our creeks and rivers. As the water moves through the landscape, ki* picks up debris including oil, pesticides, trash, vegetation, fertilizers, . . . poisoning our watershed downstream. Of course, flash floods can result in catastrophic deaths and property damage.

Rain gardens help excess water to slow down as ki moves through the landscape, reducing the possibility of erosion and enabling more absorption. As rain run-off is held in these gardens, the debris they carried is released. The Plants and soils of the garden help to filter and purify the water.

Building a Rain Garden

The design and building of a rain garden can get quite complicated, especially when working on a large scale. Though rain garden design can be much simpler for small-scale gardens. You want to focus on the main principles: slow down water, contain water allowing for more absorption, filter debris and toxins, create more habitat and food sources for our more-than-human kin.

Rain gardens can be strategically located near areas prone to rain run-off such as driveways, parking lots, industrial agriculture farms, or by downspouts. My local city installed rain gardens around town to help prevent the streets from flooding as well as to filter the water before ki goes into the sewer system. Areas where rainwater naturally accumulates is an ideal location for a rain garden. (This is where we located our garden at Heart Springs Sanctuary.) Or we can also place them near areas where we may want to encourage water to seep into the ground.

The main concern is that the water is collected in a safe place, paying particular attention to the overflow of the garden. In other words, we do not want to direct this water towards buildings, roadways, or creeks.

Water flows downhill and tends to follow the path of least resistance. Therefore, a rain garden should be built in a slight depression. Excavating or building retaining walls can help to create a larger container for the water to collect. Water should only temporarily stay in the garden; you are not creating a pond.

Before building your rain garden, observe the way water flows through the Land during and after storms. How can you work with this natural flow of water? Where does the flow need to shift? How can the Land support your rain garden design? How can the Land benefit from a rain garden?

Stormwater Rain Garden

As mentioned earlier, the idea for creating a rain garden at Heart Springs Sanctuary (HSS) surfaced after experiencing our first large rainstorm here. During the storm, I discovered that my neighbor’s farm is contoured to direct the water to flow from their fields into a drainage culvert that goes under the road and onto HSS. This drainage culvert continued for a bit and emptied into a natural depression, where the previous landowners had a dump and burn pile. The water continued to flow from here directly into the creek that intersects the Sanctuary.

Having lived in Lancaster County (farm country) most of my life, I know that agricultural run-off is one of the biggest polluters of the Chesapeake Bay (another one is sewage overflow – yuck). Therefore, I knew that we needed to do something to disrupt this flow. Interestingly, the depression where the culvert emptied is the area that the Nature Spirits of HSS told me to focus on when I first moved here.

Because we were dealing with a large quantity of stormwater and agricultural run-off, our rain garden needed to be fairly large.

Garden Installation

It made sense to utilize the natural depression where the culvert emptied into as the base of our rain garden design, no excavation required. The ground at HSS is naturally spongy and generally absorbs water easily; therefore, we did not add any sand or aggregate to help with the absorption rate. After clearing the vegetation from the garden site, we piled nearby sticks on top of cardboard. We covered this area with a thick amount of good compost and planted water loving Bushes and other Plants.

We included Plants who would help to change the energetics of the water that flowed through our garden. To support this effort, we added artwork and healing stones to the garden. (You can read more about our rain garden process on the About Heart Springs Sanctuary page and in the Japanese Hops chapter of Communicating with Plants.)

While this was a fairly large garden and we immediately were able to see ki’s success, there was more work to be done. The following spring, we created a small retention pond. This pond was again located where water naturally accumulated even before we built the rain garden. Besides being a reservoir during large rainstorms, the pond also collects fertilizer and soil that flows in from the farm. We surrounded the pond with more water loving Plants. Frogs quickly moved in.

Additionally, we planted Trees and Bushes in the “floodplain” of the rain garden. These receive less water than the Plants in the garden; however, they still need to be able to handle occasional large amounts of water. We mowed meandering paths and stopped mowing certain areas (such as near the creek) to direct the water away from the creek and again help ki to slow down.

Rain Garden Before and After

It’s been nearly six years since we created the first phase of the rain garden design at Heart Springs Sanctuary. We have had numerous storms over the years, which have given us many opportunities to observe the garden and Land and to learn more about working with water. I continually ask, where can we slow down the water? As well as, where can we collect or absorb more water?

This has caused me to broaden my thinking of what a rain garden is. I see that every area that comes into contact with large amounts of water as another component of the rain garden. In other words, we are rainscaping, utilizing the gifts of and reducing the detrimental impacts of receiving large amounts of water.

The frequency of extreme storms is only one component of climate change. Another is extreme drought (we experienced this last year). The rain garden helps us to slow down and spread out the influx of water, enabling ki to absorb into our soil. This greater absorption of water proves to be a great blessing during droughts and even smaller dry spells, resulting in less need for irrigation and more resiliency.

We recently received two large rainstorms, the 1st occurring days after our neighbor harvested his farm. This means that there wasn’t any vegetation to stop the water from pouring off of his fields (acting like an enormous parking lot). During these storms, I realized that our next focus should be along the drainage culvert.

Rain Gardens and Climate Resiliency

Rain gardens are wonderful additions to our landscape and help to mitigate the impacts of climate change. However, they are only one (small) part of climate resiliency. We still need to focus on reducing global temperatures (primarily through the reduction of greenhouse gases). For individuals this mostly means advocating for policies that actively address the causes and impacts of climate change.

We can also encourage our local municipalities to shift the way in which they manage water. There is a tendency to move water off of an area as quickly as possible, directing this water somewhere else, which can contribute to flooding issues.

Rain gardens, of course, can be a part of this plan. Along with reducing the amount of impervious areas, planting more Trees and perennials with large root systems, rain water collection, and more. Ideally our communities plan and prepare for more frequent large rainstorms. How are they planning for this influx of water? Can the water become a resource? Where are the stress points (the areas most prone to flooding, the largest contributors to rainwater run-off, the places where flooding would be the most harmful, . . .)? How are the most vulnerable or underserved people and communities impacted?

Our Decisions Matter

One thing that I’ve learned through our rain garden is that our decisions impact others. Our neighbor’s choice to remove the Trees from around their fields, drive heavy equipment over the field (compressing the soil), grow annual crops leaving bare soil for much of the year, and contour their fields to direct the water off of them is the main reason we have flooding at HSS. Likewise, our decision to redirect the water from flowing into the creek caused more water to flow onto another neighbor’s property.

If we want to create a better future for all, we need to remember that we (including the Land and water) are all connected. We cannot solve these problems on our own, we need to work together. Which includes working with our more-than-human kin to find solutions or discover new ways of being.

Large water events are going to continue to occur. If we want to increase our resiliency, we need to learn to work WITH water and one another.

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Since 2003, Earth advocate, Jen Frey, has supported courageous, conscious groups and individuals return to a deep connection with Nature. She founded Brigid’s Way in 2010 offering personal healing consultations, workshops in Plant and Nature communication, and apprenticeships for those who are ready to transform their lives. Jen continues to support other practitioners and seekers while also traveling the world providing land consultations and making Plant Spirit essences for our awakening to wholeness.

* ki is an animistic, genderless third person pronoun which recognizes the aliveness of our more-than-human kin. To the best of my knowledge, in her book Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer was the first to suggest using ki.