Rain Garden(s) on Shady Lane
Hello! My partner and I moved to Ann Arbor in October 2020. We've put in three native beds and I'm now turning my gaze to potentially building a rain garden (or two). I've taken a few photos of potential spots where a rain garden could go. We will likely be building a patio next year, and to do so, they might need to take the spout and dig a spot underground for it to run off. This might be a great opportunity to tell the building to run the spout to a rain garden! I've included a few photos of spots in our front and/or backyard that might have potential to be a rain garden bed.
This is the South part of our back lawn (this part is West facing). Here you can see there's a gutter (this is the garage roof run-off). It could be directed west facing (it's now NNW facing) down to a bed. As you can see there's a lot of virginia creeper and buckthorn on the other side of the fence (an unkept vacant house lot is on the other side, a lot of fighting back on our side of the fence). As our house is East/West facing and 1,000 sq ft we get a fair amount of sun. In this area, it's a mix of shade and sun. Especially as a few trees just outside out lot provide good cover. The bed is nearly 40' from the downspout but as I said, with the patio being put in, we might have the downspout put underground and would run off to the bed.
Another possibility is on the North side of the back lawn. As you can see there is a lovely old maple providing cover. In the right part of this image is a native bed. The downspout is circled. This part of the yard actually slopes downward. See below.
This bed is a complete mix of stuff! Some native plants, some wildflowers, a peony, you name it! Again, some of the virginia creeper, well, creeps, under the fence and we have to rip it out. As you can see, there are two raised beds. One is empty at the moment (save for a canna lilly) and then there is a covered little vegetable garden. From an engineering standpoint (I'm not an engineer) because it slopes down this way, a rain garden would sort of be perfect here I think. But, we also have the beds. So I'm a bit unsure if this is where I would want it to go. The bed is somewhere between 30-40' from the downspout. Alternatively, I thought this particular downspout would be great for a rain barrel if I don't put a rain garden here.
This is the front of our house. The arrows indicate (and maybe you can see it) our lawn slopes down from the road. Our street is VERY quiet. Hardly any traffic. A2 has been getting a lot of rain this summer. Just to the left of the arrows, on the driveway you'll see a sewer plate. Below, you'll see another grate that's in the lawn, just off the driveway that leads to the sewer.
So, my thinking here is that potentially, two rain garden beds could be off the driveway/street. I'd move the hydrangeas. Up the driveway, there's a redbud. Unfortunately, the front yard of our house has a strange triangular lot so I'd have to get creative with the shape. The potential bed in the upper left space is about 15 feet from the spout (it's the beige L shape, you might see it, just passed the redbud).
I look forward to thoughts on these potential beds as rain gardens!
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5 years agoRelated Professionals
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Let's try this again! I've reevaluated where I'm going to put my rain garden. We will be installing a patio in spring 2022 (hopefully!) and the contractor said that they would have to redirect the downspout run off toward the back of the property. This is the perfect opportunity to use those impending PVC pipes to direct them to a rain garden bed. Please see the photo below. As you'll see, the back of the yard slopes downward ~20' from the house. Currently there are two forsythia bushes there which will be moved and then there is a chain link fence (we'll of course ensure the rain garden is 2' from the fence :)). I'm sure it won't be easy to move the bushes...ahh well.
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PRO5 years agoThis discussion made us think of offering a link to our blog about rain gardens: https://www.vanzelst.com/blog/rain-gardens/. It includes a list of plant suggestions for the Midwest and some inspirational photos - Enjoy!
Another really helpful blog post about drainage problems and how to resolve them: https://www.vanzelst.com/blog/water-problems-and-solutions/.
Drainage issues resolved beautifully!
See more photos on our website Photo Gallery.
l pinkmountain