DIY Rain Garden Tips

The first rain gardens I ever saw looked a little clunky and out of place — a landscaping afterthought in an otherwise well-designed yard. That was easily a decade ago, and since then modern rain garden design has made huge strides.

Today’s rain gardens form a green landscape that’s low maintenance and as beautiful as you want it to be. This beauty is more than skin deep, because rain gardens protect local waterways, groundwater supplies and city sewer systems by slowing storm runoff and filtering pollutants. Since rain gardens replace turf, they also can help homeowners save money on lawn care.

Wondering if a rain garden is right for you? Glean some in-the-know tips and check out a few rain garden designs from David Hymel and Marilyn Jacobs, owners of Rain Dog Designs in Gig Harbor, Washington.

Rain gardens can host a variety of plants to suit all kinds of garden styles. This front yard rain garden stages a colorful cottage garden. Jacobs suggests checking with master gardeners or your local extension office for sample rain garden planting plans. “Using a plan can help you avoid a common and costly mistake: overplanting,” she says. “With overplanting, taller plants crowd out and can shade out lower ones.”

Knowing when you need to hire professionals to help with installing a rain garden depends, in part, on how large the job is. If you plan to renovate a traditional lawn and plantings to create a low-maintenance, low-water use landscape, a garden designer with rain garden experience can help conceptualize the new earth-friendly design. Hymel suggests that a contractor can still be helpful for rain garden designs smaller than a whole yard makeover. Consider hiring a contractor to tackle soil excavation and/or a designer to help with plant selection and placement.

Consider working with neighbors to share resources and reduce costs. “When neighbors coordinate installing rain gardens, they can save as much as 30 to 35 percent on construction costs, such as hiring a single excavator to do the digging,” Hymel says. “We coined the phrase ‘neighbor labor’ to describe this process, which ultimately creates community.”