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Rain Gardens: Sustainable Landscaping for a Beautiful Yard and a Healthy World
Rain gardens are at the forefront of the green revolution. This environmentally friendly landscaping captures rainwater runoff rather than redirecting it into storm drains. The result is less erosion, less water pollution, and a beautiful, low-maintenance, sustainable garden. This is the first rain garden handbook for the backyard home gardener. Co-authors Robert Domm and Lynn Steiner draw on hands-on experience to help homeowners build beautiful rain gardens in their own yards. Illustrated with color photography, this instructive book offers specific advice about planning, building, planting, and maintaining your garden. Learn about city grants, how to calculate runoff, rain barrels, attracting wildlife, gray water recycling, and much more.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 1, 2021
Rain gardens have become a popular way of trying to make cultivated lands in key areas a lot better at bringing water into the soil rather than letting it serve as destructive run-off. In order to mimic the natural behavior of swamps, this book contains a deep discussion of how it is to plan, design, build, and maintain such rain gardens. Admittedly, rain gardens are something I can see as being very worthwhile in theory, but in practice I find it somewhat unpleasant to think that people would want to intentionally make wetlands, not least because of the question of government regulation and the hindrance of the behavior of property owners because of the deliberate cultivation of such space. Perhaps such gardens would be a lot less popular if people realized that they could lose the right to put anything else in a given area if they made a rain garden that was judged by the government as a wetlands, something that this book does not discuss. This is a book that seems to be aimed at political matters and not always successful at wrestling with the larger questions of how gardens relate to the larger world of human law and regulation.
This book is a normal sized work of less than 200 pages, but the pages are large and well-photographed, so this is a plus. The book begins with an introduction to rain gardens. After that the author talks about how to plan a rain garden (1), including how to locate them, dealing with low areas, existing drainage swales, as well as questions of ordinances and setbacks and how to calculate a garden's water load. This is followed by a look at the building of rain gardens (2), including raw materials, sketches, laying out the rain garden, digging and mixing the space and its soil, dealing with overflows, connecting downspouts, installing berms, and creating a swale garden. After that the author discusses how to plaint a rain garden (3), including creating a plant list, designing gardens, edging and mulching a rain garden, purchasing plants, planting, and caring for plants right after planting. The fourth chapter then looks at how to maintain one's rain garden, looking at a calendar of tasks, long-term maintenance, adding shrubs and small trees, as well as larger trees. The book then ends with a plant index containing perennials, grasses and grasslike plants, shrubs and small trees, and trees, as well as other resources, an index, and information about the authors.
One of the striking aspects about this book is that a well-regulated rain garden in order to mimic and help struggling wetlands takes a lot of work. We often take wetlands for granted, and one of the issues that such spaces have is that they are viewed as being places for the breeding of noxious insects rather than being essential places for the handling of water. And one can see that if a rain garden is not handled well, that the result could be rather painful. It would be nice to see just how often rain gardens end up being designed intelligently and end up working out in reducing the runoff and in better providing for groundwater infiltration. This book is more about prescription and less about analysis, but there is definitely a place for authors to ponder how much that hyped gardening techniques like this one can actually lead to better water treatment. I happen to think that a great many rain gardens do not work quite as well as expected in circulating water but manage to do a better job at collecting standing water, but that is not a subject matter this book wishes to discuss.
This book is a normal sized work of less than 200 pages, but the pages are large and well-photographed, so this is a plus. The book begins with an introduction to rain gardens. After that the author talks about how to plan a rain garden (1), including how to locate them, dealing with low areas, existing drainage swales, as well as questions of ordinances and setbacks and how to calculate a garden's water load. This is followed by a look at the building of rain gardens (2), including raw materials, sketches, laying out the rain garden, digging and mixing the space and its soil, dealing with overflows, connecting downspouts, installing berms, and creating a swale garden. After that the author discusses how to plaint a rain garden (3), including creating a plant list, designing gardens, edging and mulching a rain garden, purchasing plants, planting, and caring for plants right after planting. The fourth chapter then looks at how to maintain one's rain garden, looking at a calendar of tasks, long-term maintenance, adding shrubs and small trees, as well as larger trees. The book then ends with a plant index containing perennials, grasses and grasslike plants, shrubs and small trees, and trees, as well as other resources, an index, and information about the authors.
One of the striking aspects about this book is that a well-regulated rain garden in order to mimic and help struggling wetlands takes a lot of work. We often take wetlands for granted, and one of the issues that such spaces have is that they are viewed as being places for the breeding of noxious insects rather than being essential places for the handling of water. And one can see that if a rain garden is not handled well, that the result could be rather painful. It would be nice to see just how often rain gardens end up being designed intelligently and end up working out in reducing the runoff and in better providing for groundwater infiltration. This book is more about prescription and less about analysis, but there is definitely a place for authors to ponder how much that hyped gardening techniques like this one can actually lead to better water treatment. I happen to think that a great many rain gardens do not work quite as well as expected in circulating water but manage to do a better job at collecting standing water, but that is not a subject matter this book wishes to discuss.
September 20, 2018
If you are thinking about installing or maintaining a rain garden, this book would be a valuable addition to your Master Gardener library. The authors have a wealth of experience in horticulture and stormwater best management practices. Their expertise is coupled with their photographic talents which, enliven and enlighten this wonderful book. I have a rain garden in my front yard and found plenty to interest me inside these pages about sustaining and maintaining the landscape.
First is a useful and readable section on the value of water, with a special attention given to stormwater. Their description of the journey from rainwater to a “toxic soup” inhabiting our streams, lakes, rivers, is stark and chilling. Yet they temper this with measures that we can put into place in our own landscapes that remediate the water quality of urban run-off.
Knowledge of the watershed, stormwater permitting, and underground cables is stressed. In brief, a rain garden is a specially designed space which, collects rainwater from roofs, driveways, patios, sidewalks, and other non-permeable areas. They are designed to quickly and efficiently absorb excess rainwater. And they are kind to our environment if you populate them with native plants. Use of fertilizer and pesticides becomes unnecessary.
If you are new to rain gardening, this book clearly gives an excellent, logically planned, step-by-step guide to planning, locating, maintaining the rain garden. Required tools, a guide to measurements, berm installation, and year-round care for your plants are featured.
The detail and accompanying photographs make clear the what, the how, the where, of a successful raingarden. Bumps in the road and cautions to be aware of are also explained.
I found that just reading and rereading the chapters along with attention to photographs of rain gardens and flowers. The material is presented clearly. No need for a dictionary or textbook. And the authors’ approach makes it a project that we can envision installing ourselves, with a little help from our friends and Master gardeners.
First is a useful and readable section on the value of water, with a special attention given to stormwater. Their description of the journey from rainwater to a “toxic soup” inhabiting our streams, lakes, rivers, is stark and chilling. Yet they temper this with measures that we can put into place in our own landscapes that remediate the water quality of urban run-off.
Knowledge of the watershed, stormwater permitting, and underground cables is stressed. In brief, a rain garden is a specially designed space which, collects rainwater from roofs, driveways, patios, sidewalks, and other non-permeable areas. They are designed to quickly and efficiently absorb excess rainwater. And they are kind to our environment if you populate them with native plants. Use of fertilizer and pesticides becomes unnecessary.
If you are new to rain gardening, this book clearly gives an excellent, logically planned, step-by-step guide to planning, locating, maintaining the rain garden. Required tools, a guide to measurements, berm installation, and year-round care for your plants are featured.
The detail and accompanying photographs make clear the what, the how, the where, of a successful raingarden. Bumps in the road and cautions to be aware of are also explained.
I found that just reading and rereading the chapters along with attention to photographs of rain gardens and flowers. The material is presented clearly. No need for a dictionary or textbook. And the authors’ approach makes it a project that we can envision installing ourselves, with a little help from our friends and Master gardeners.
March 26, 2020
I found this book helpful as a beginning overview of Rain gardens. The pictures are inspiring. However, some of the pictures and plans were too complex for me as a beginner. There are encyclopedic plant lists. I got a bit overwhelmed. Also, I one of the places I need to use a rain garden is shady and another in the sun. There was less information on how rain gardens in sun or shade changes design or structural planning.
August 27, 2024
Great introduction to rain gardening. Very readable. Loaded with illustrations, including a plant index. Useful information on planning, siting, and maintenance. A rain garden is a great way to help protect our watersheds!
May 15, 2022
Good information. A lot to absorb. Pun intended.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews