Hi Cindy - nice to see your yard again! Looks like a good spot. I love your plant ideas.

At Leslie's house I just saw Culver's Root looking spectacular blowing in the breeze.

What other plant ideas can we come up with?

A couple concerns came to light from the permeability/sizing data. The rain garden needs to be 519 sq feet to accommodate our 2 downspouts and my neighbor's 2 downspouts and the fact that the bottom 12 inches of the backyard is solid clay. If I want to do just our roof then the garden needs to be 298 sq feet however, our popup is on the right side of the large drain and the neighbor's is on the left (see picture below) and am not sure how to direct our popup to the garden site, on the left, as it will have to cross over or under the neighbors drain/popup.

Another question - do I need to be concerned about the drainage from my 60 feet of lawn and my back neighbor's lawn? My husband checked the slope and the neighbor's yard to the left slopes to the left so doesn't drain in to our yard but our neighbor to the back his yard definitely is higher and slopes to the swale which leads to the large drain on the property line between out yards.

This is a situation of "do what you can." You don't necessarily have to size the rain garden to catch the rain from all of those spots. If it is smaller, it will catch less, but it will still be doing good!

Just take on what you can actually build, actually plant, and actually weed.

Another thought, if you can figure out how to dig a large-ish garden, is planting plants that are easy to maintain. Shrubs? Trees?

Perhaps a smaller rain garden, but also plant a bunch of trees?

The rain garden only needs to be as big as you want a garden to be.

What do you think?

Thanks Susan - think I'll just downsize the garden. Would love to plant trees particularly a red bud however, there is a brutal winter wind that blows thru the area for the rain garden. Had asked a landscaper about planting a red bud there previously and he said not to - the wind would kill it.

Backyard drawing - back of house, patio & deck with existing planting bed at bottom left and potential rain garden at bottom right (sized 3 ways). Note the scale is one square is 2 feet by 2 feet. Couldn't fit it using one square at one foot.

Have several sprinkler heads in the back yard (black dots) which need to be worked around. Dark line at the bottom is the property line.

Looks like a plan that will work!

Plant list that goes with above plan:

Common Name, Abbrev., Scientific Name
Red Switchgrass 'Shenandoah', Red SG, Panicum virgatum
Switchgrass 'Dallas Blues', DB SG, Panicum virgatum
Switchgrass 'Cloud Nine', C9 SG, Panicum virgatum
Feather Reed Grass 'Karl Foerster', KF, Calamagrostis x acutiflora
Joe Pyeweed, Joe, Eutrochium purpureum
Rose Mallow, RM, Hibiscus moscheutos
New England Aster 'Purple Dome', A, Symphyotrichum novae-angliae
Garden Phlox 'Miss Elie', PH, Phlox paniculata
Northern Sea Oats, N SO, Chasmanthium latifolium
Purple Coneflower, EP, Echinacea purpurea
Common Fox Sedge, FS, Carex stipata
Wild Geranium, G, Geranium Maculatum
Blue Flag Iris, F, Iris virginica

This should provide Fall and Winter interest as well as nectar for bees/butterflies and larval hosts for some butterflies. There is a strong West wind thru the back yard so should get some interesting movement with the grasses and air circulation for the Phlox, Aster and Rose Mallow. Hoping for interesting back-lighting of the grasses when the sun sets too.

Sorry - had the list all nicely formatted but doesn't save that way here.

Already have: iris, phlox, aster, Northern Sea Oats and Karl Foerster grass. Will need all the switchgrasses, Joe Pyeweed, Rose Mallow, Purple coneflower, fox sedge and geranium.

A follow up on sizing - the above plan is 188 sq feet (need 298 sq ft to accommodate the 2 downspouts from our house) but am hesitant to make it bigger as not sure where the sprinkler system runs thru the back yard. So the rain garden will be undersized.

That is fine. How is it coming? I am sure you weren't digging in this heat - but it may cool down yet!

Correct, too hot to dig, am hoping I can get it started this weekend as it is supposed to cool down.