06/25/2026
My rain garden has come a long way since install spring 2025.
I moved into a new house a little over a year ago and let’s just say the yard didn’t have much going on. Since I prioritize designs that give more than they take, I knew I wanted to do a design for the yard that relied predominantly on rain water and wanted some sort of rain garden if that space allowed.
I quickly realized that every time it rained, the area where the path leading to the front door and the driveway met flooded each time it rained (see the second photo). Dodging wet feet every time it rained and I need to come and go was no fun. I knew a rain garden was the answer.
I dug out the rain garden about 5 inches deep so that it was lower than where the water pooled and used the excavated soil to raise the path around the rain garden. Next I added in plants that enjoy an occasional soggy time and consistent moisture. I selected almost entirely natives for this garden including, Joe Pye W**d, Buttonbush ‘Fiber Optics’, Blazing Star, Common Boneset, Clustered Mountain Mint, Lizard’s Tail, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Solar Cascade Goldenrod, and my favorite: Aquatic Milkweed. I will admit my irises are not a native species but they were a gift from my mother so what can you do. After planting, I put in a 3-4 inch layer of wood mulch which serves a few purposes. The mulch evens out the look of the garden so the pit you dug just appears to be the same level as the surrounding ground. Wood mulch also helps insulate the soil which protects plants from extreme hot and cold, prevents moisture loss through evaporation and it can hold up to 3x its weight in water.
In the first video you can see that the rain garden fixed my water pooling problem almost instantly. Although the garden gets FILLED with water whenever it rains, it drains within an hour once the rain stops. No mosquito breeding ponds here.
While the garden has undergone huge growth since install last year it’s still in it’s youth and still has some time till its reaches maturity. As the saying goes “the first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps and the third year it leaps”
