VIDEO: Creating rain gardens with Senga

Credit: Senga Lindsay video

Landscape architect Senga Lindsay shows us how she created her rain garden in a morning

My husband and I worked on this rain garden one Saturday morning. It took a total of four hours to create, including the making of the video. We wanted to show that rain gardens and being sustainable in our gardens is easy, beautiful and doesn’t have to be high tech or expensive.
 
This rain garden is one of three methods we have around the house where we have disconnected the rain leaders and allowed water to infiltrate into the ground. Ultimately, this water will recharge the underground aquifers from which many cities derive their drinking water.

As an observation, since we have taken water away from the roof drains (which are old and inefficient) and directed it into the gardens we have seen significantly less flooding in our unfinished crawlspace. 
 
We have used plants that match the rest of the perennial border while still being able to handle the water sitting on their roots for short periods of time. Once the garden grows in one will never be able to tell that a functional and sustainable system lies under the sea of ornamental grasses and flowering perennials.