Rain garden

This long Veterans' Day weekend we got busy here at the Tree House installing a big rain garden in the backyard. The garden is designed to capture rainwater runoff from the back half of our roof and the patio and allow it to percolate through the ground. Learn more here: http://emswcd.org/in-your-yard/rain-gardens/.

Two weeks ago: Marking off the area

Day 1: Picked up the plants from Audubon native plant sale and others

Day 1: Hired our neighbor and his small backhoe to remove the sod and excavate about 12"

Hauling away the sod

Day 2: Grading the garden and separating out some quality rocks to use in the water inflow area

Day 2: grading and putting in 2" of compost

Day 3: Putting in the plants!

53 plants in there! Many of them are dormant right now (Common Camas and Oregon Iris)

Day 3: Mulching done! View from near the patio, looking to the backyard

View from the backyard, looking at the patio and the very strange wisteria vine/tree.

The plan is to hook up the rain garden to the back gutter system next year after we remodel the patio. It's recommended to allow a rain garden's plants to get established somewhat before introducing them to significant amounts of rain water so that they don't get washed out in their first year.

Eventually we would like to build a footbridge over the rain garden (where the line of rocks is now in the photograph) so that one can walk over it from the side yard into the backyard.