Is your rain garden ready?

[Mikey]

http://www.dirtdujour.com/item/is_your_rain_garden_ready1/  Here in the Southwest rain is a precious thing not to be wasted yet most people do in fact waste it due to runoff, especially those with clay or hydrophobic soil (repels water).  My soil, although a silty sand mixture, tends to be hydrophobic, however, once it becomes moistened from a slow gentle rain it then looses its hydrophobic properties and easily absorbs water.  I capture and  redirect rain water from roof gutters directly into my soil where it quickly soaks into the ground.  Adjacent to my property is a sidewalk and then a 7' wide parkway.  Rain water used to flow down the sidewalk and into the gutter and then into the storm drain and back to the ocean.  Several years ago I removed all the grass in the parkway and removed about 8" of soil so that now when it rains the water flows off the sidewalk and into the parkway where it is absorbed into the soil.

[miguynmkoi]

I've been working on collecting our precious rainwater for many years.  Both sides of my house I have the rain "absorbed" into the ground through a channel along the property where it collects and slowly infiltrates the ground.  There is small gravel on the surface for the rose garden side and a perforated pipe on gravel on the storage side.   

My front yard totally absorbs most of the rain because I got rid of my lawn a few years ago, except for a small concrete patch.  Back yard is 75% concrete but the rain is collected mostly by the side-yards unless it gets over-saturated (rarely) then it runs into the drainage pipes to the street.

I have not installed gutters on my roof ($$$) but I do try to collect as much water that runs off the roof with a line of old but clean trash cans - we have had to use the provided ugly trash containers now for the past 10 + years.  Spring is the only time I use all the collected water to water the gardens.  Lots of water carrying but it's worth it when I see my low water bills!  Been doing this for many years now.

I remember way back when neighbors said they thought my house would float away when they saw all the rain, on an especially hard rainy day, fall into my side yard off my roof.  It was useless to explain to them that the rain falling straight to the ground was doing me a favor.  They have the enormous water bills that I do not!  Plus it's all giving back to Mother Nature the way it should be done.

[Kittyzee]

My DH puts a barrel at the corner of the barn where the rainwater runs off the tin roof, and we can water things that the hose can't reach.  Here the barrels would be over run most of the time (except for THIS summer... ) but I found a site that was interesting....and I'm not promoting this site, I just thought it had some interesting facts....   www.rainbarrelguide.com

Thanks for reminding us that we should be much more protective of our water supply...