Author: Philip Piletic

Writer, traveler and freelancer who enjoys his garden in the spare time. I have a strong interest in ecology and sustainability and I believe that the global changes can happen one small step at a time.

How to Build a Rain Garden Step-by-Step & Why It Helps Protect the Environment

Rainwater harvesting is one of the most important things anyone can do to help preserve our environment. We don’t have an unlimited amount of fresh water at the moment. Plus, rainwater that runs off your roof is better off being used than running down the drain. Roof rainwater is typically filled with heavy metals and chemicals that leach from roofing materials, animal droppings, and many other pollutants. This polluted water will make its way down the drains and into our rivers.

Rain Gardens Are the Perfect Solution

Rain gardens allow homeowners to collect rainwater, put it to good use by growing beautiful plants, ensure that it is conserved in the ground and filtered before it passes into lakes, rivers, and the groundwater. Water can be diverted from driveways and roofs into the rain garden, plus the way the garden is designed will mean most water in a storm will naturally flow into them instead of ending up in places that could hurt our health.

We’re going to look at the steps you need to take to create one, but first, make sure your tool shed is in order. You’ll need tools, so ensure the clutter is gone so you can find them and they’re all stored away neatly. Once you’re done we’ll proceed to focus on the individual steps you need to take.

A quick Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Rain Garden

1 – Choose Your Location

Make sure your rain garden is at least 10 feet away from your home, plus it should be at a low point in the ground to help it attract water naturally. The downspout on your house and garden shed should be able to reach it too. This can easily be achieved with downspout extenders for short distances and non-perforated drain tile for longer distances. Another option is to collect the water in large barrels or troughs straight from the gutters. The disadvantage is that you’ll have to hand-carry water in smaller buckets to the garden. The advantage is that you won’t have a large volume of water rushing into your garden during a storm, damaging plants, washing away soil and defeating the environmental purposes for your rain garden. Controlled watering from a container with a dispersing head produces gentler watering that is targeted and less wasteful.

  • Downspout extenders ($12-$25 each)
  • A 50-foot coil of drain tile ($24-$30 each)
  • 50-gallon rain barrel with lid ($35-$70)

2 – Ensure It’s Large Enough

When you’re collecting water from a roof it’s going to have a big surface area, so you want your rain garden to handle it easily. You’ll have to work out if the area is large enough while taking the type of soil into account.

3 – Designing Your Rain Garden

You’re not just trying to protect the environment at the expense of your beautiful garden. The rain garden needs to be attractive too, which will mean sitting down with a piece of paper and coming up with the perfect design.

  • Graph paper pad ($4-$6)

4 – Choosing Specific Plants

The same kind of thing applies when you’re choosing plants. You want to pick the ones that will make your garden more aesthetically pleasing. One big piece of advice is to use native plants as they’ll be able to handle the environment. The experts at your local gardening center will assist you in selecting native plants that will do well in local soils. Consider digging a hole and selecting samples from the topsoil and underlying soil layers to take with you for the plant expert to inspect.

5 – Start Mapping It Out

Now you will have to create the shape you plan on using based on your previous design work. It needs to be mapped before you do anything else. It’s also worth finding out at this point if there is anything like pipes underground. In the US and Canada, use the Call 811 service, and someone from the local utility company, usually at no charge, will locate and mark pipes and wiring on your property, so you can avoid the danger and damage of hitting them.

  • 22-foot tape steel tape measure or 50-foot fiberglass tape, depending on the size of your project ($4-$24)
  • Wood marking stakes ($4-$8 per bundle)
  • Sisal for outlining garden boundaries before digging ($3-$5)

6 – Now It’s Time to Dig and Fill

Once you’re sure everything is clear you’ll be able to start digging the soil away. You want to make sure you dig between 4-8 inches deep and measure it just in case. Use some of the soil if you want to build a berm around the edge. If your soil is clayey, this depth will likely be sufficient. If you have sandy soil, especially where your climate is dry, consider digging down 12 inches and lining the bottom of the garden bed with rotting timber from nearby woods or locally purchased firewood. This is an eco-friendly permaculture technique like hügelkultur but in bed form. Timbers absorb water, requiring far less watering of the space should little rainfall. The humus and nutrients produced by the rotting wood encourage plant health too. In sandy soil, a layer of clay can be effective for water retention and for filtering pollutants. Soil scientist Gary M. Pierzynski of Kansas State University says, “Many soil clay particles have a negative charge and will attract any constituents in the water that have a positive charge (e.g., some heavy metals, salts, organic chemicals, and pesticides).”  Minimizing the negative impact of these contaminants on the soil and groundwater is a primary reason for building a rain garden, of course.

  • Locally sourced firewood ($50-$70 per cord, sufficient for a 10’x20’ garden bed)

7 – Getting the Soil Ready

You’ll want to add 2-3 inches of compost into the hole you’ve dug, but it will also need to be mixed in with most of the soil until the ground is level again. You need to ensure you mix everything together properly. The greenest source of compost is your own yard and non-meat food waste. Fruit and vegetable rinds, seeds, egg shells, bread, grass cuttings, tree pruning waste and much more can be composted. Here’s a comprehensive list of things you should and should not compost and instructions to guide you.

8 – Planting Your Flowers

Go back to the design you came up with earlier, and lay your plants in the ground. Make sure they are roughly 12 inches apart. Once they’re safely in the ground you can use your hand trowel to put flowers and grasses into the spaces.

9 – Mulching the Rain Garden

When you’re mulching it’s good to use coarse wood chips as they won’t fly away when the weather gets bad. It should be around 2 inches deep once you’re finished, which will help to lock all the moisture in.

Conclusion

Let’s summarize the many advantages of harvesting rainwater that falls on your roof.

  • The polluted water is diverted from storm drains that empty into lakes and streams
  • It can be filtered through soil before entering groundwater
  • Water can be conserved in a permaculture garden so that fresh water isn’t required for keeping the garden green and growing
  • Research shows that, with specific precautions, harvested rainwater can be used to grow edibles

If you’re looking for a project that is good for people and the planet, planting a permaculture-based garden and watering it with harvested rainwater is a very earth-friendly choice.

Editor’s Note

There are some roofs, even some asphalt roofs, where the water can be collected and then be filtered and used as drinking water. It may be worth some research and lab testing. Before you use rainwater collected from a roof in a food garden, and especially for drinking, it is usually a good idea to get it tested.

Related reading:
Sources:
Compost list:

New Trend in Architecture – Green Building

Summing up the first decades of the green building trend, one expert said, “When all was said and done, there was a lot more said than done.”

Well, that adage has been turned upside down in the last ten years. Call it Green Building 2.0! A new, exciting wave of buildings for residential and commercial use boost eco-friendly design and systems using sustainable materials and methods.

The process begins with architecture.  Designing and building the proper form of a structure to sustain functions allows living and working in ways that have less negative impact on the environment.

Why Do Builders Go Green?

There are several reasons why green designs are rising in numbers and stature around the world.

The Demand

Per the U.S. Green Building Council, “Buildings are responsible for an enormous amount of global energy use, resource consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions.” We’d all like that to change, and, to borrow from Gandhi’s famous line, we want to support the change we want to see in the world. That means living and working in buildings that cause less harm to the environment and perhaps even benefit it. While this vision is most prevalent among Millennials, it is taking root across all demographics.

Corporate Image

Perhaps we’re being a touch cynical here, so more positively stated, the developers of the eco-friendly buildings in which we live and work want to be responsible corporate citizens. Green buildings are good for their image because they are better for the world.

Environmental Reasons

More core than demand and image, here are the reasons and percentages of respondents in a global survey that gave them for building green:

  • Reduced energy consumption – 72%
  • Lowered greenhouse gas emissions – 27%
  • Protected natural resources – 27%
  • Reduced water consumption – 25%
  • Improved indoor air quality (IAQ) – 17%

These 2012 figures from the World Green Building Council’s Smart Market Report show significant growth in most categories over 2008 numbers.

How Green Are Builders Getting?

Saying that a building is green is a sure bet only if it is sheathed in a forest green or rich emerald. When the discussion is about a building’s environmental impact, then the issue is one of degrees. It’s far easier to implement green building practices in new construction. However, the clear majority of the world’s buildings were erected before the move to eco-safe construction was popular.

In light of that, information from the Smart Market Report lists categories of green building products used around the world with recent data (2012) and projected figures for 2017. Most of the products are part of retrofitting an existing building. Here are the numbers from key categories. The first figure is 2012; the second is what is projected for 2017 based on surveys of building owners and managers:

  • Electrical such as photovoltaic panels: 63% / 62% (the only category where the percentage decreased)
  • Mechanical such as efficient HVAC systems: 60% / 63%
  • Heat/Moisture Protection such as vapor barriers to prevent air leaks: 60% / 64%
  • Building automation for lighting and other systems: 57% / 62%
  • Waste Management such as recycling/reuse programs: 52% / 61%
  • Furnishings such as those made with recycled and/or recyclable materials: 34% / 44%

The report states that 89% of all respondents reported making advancements in at least one category. The countries where the most buildings are being outfitted with green building materials are Singapore (100%), Brazil (96%), and South Africa (96%). By contrast, the U.K. (85%) and the U.S. (84%) are among the industrialized countries that are lagging.

The most sustainable office in the world, the head office of Geelen Counterflow in Haelen, the Netherlands. 99,94% score in the international Breeam certification system. Completely constructed from sustainablyforested wood and generating 50% more solar energy than it consumes. (PRNewsFoto/Geelen Counterflow)

Today’s Greenest Buildings

Here’s a short list to get you started on exploring structures on the cutting edge of building green.

The head office of Geelen Counterflow in the Netherlands (see above and see featured image above) has been called “the most sustainable office building in the world.” Among its green practices is the use of solar energy that generates 50 percent more electricity than required to power the building. All materials used in construction, including recycled timber, are sustainable.

The K2 apartments in Victoria, Australia, is a 92-unit development built in 2007 that is the winner of many prestigious awards. The complex boasts low greenhouse gas emissions through using less than 50 percent of the norm for electricity, natural gas, and water. Rainwater is treated for human use, and greywater is recycled as two of the development’s resource-conserving practices.

Taipei 101 in Taiwan is dubbed the world’s tallest green building for its LEED Platinum certification, the highest awarded by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design organization.

One Angel Square Manchester, UK achieved an “Outstanding” rating by BREEAM, the Building Research Established Environmental Assessment Methodology. Its green methods include a combined heat and power (CHP) plant fed by pure plant oil that produces excess electricity to send back to the grid. LED lighting, recycled waste, and rainwater are also utilized.

Other buildings worth investigating for their sustainability include Shanghai Tower in China, One Bryant Park in NYC, The Crystal in London, and the beautifully designed Micro Emission Sun-Moon Mansion in Dezhou, China.

The Central Role of Manufacturers

Green buildings wouldn’t be the success they are without manufacturers making necessary production adjustments for energy-efficient equipment systems and the parts to support them. Nowhere is this more evident than in the various fields of clean, alternative energy such as geothermal, solar, and wind. In 2015, $396 billion AUD was invested globally in renewable energy while just $180 billion was invested in fossil fuel development.

This increase in demand for clean energy means, according to one manufacturer, that, “…manufacturers of equipment used to produce carbon-based, fossil fuel-derived electricity are discovering that the designs of some of their equipment must be adapted for use with alternative energy sources.” Making those changes turns the vision of alternative energy into reality.

The eco-shift from fossil fuel-derived power to alternative/renewable sources is a flow:

  1. The need: Change must happen
  2. The vision: Change can happen
  3. The demand: Make the change to green buildings that use alternative energy!
  4. The investment: Here’s $396 billion AUD to make the changes
  5. The manufacturing: Here’s the equipment and parts required to change to clean, renewable energy
  6. The implementation: We have changed the world!

What part will you play in supporting the change you want to see in the world? It might be as simple as advocating for green building updates through the first three steps above where you live or work. If you’re a decision-maker in those settings or a building owner, an investor or manufacturer, then your role is found in steps 4-6.

The change is possible; be the change you want to see for a greener world.

Further Reading:
Sources:

Eco-Friendly Landscaping: Helping Ensure the Future

For many people, landscaping is a form of personal and artistic expression. It’s also a desire to improve the quality of life for the entire community. Lush beautiful gardens are a delight to those taking neighborhood strolls, and more than one life-long friendship has begun with appreciation of natural beauty freely shared and the exchange of gardening secrets. Landscaping is also a great way to incorporate more of the beauty of nature into urban environments.

A combination of events such as increasing energy and water costs and global warming have caused homeowners to consider the far-reaching benefits of eco-friendly landscaping. To make your landscaping more eco-friendly, there are a number of things you can do. Eco-friendly landscaping doesn’t just reduce global warming and the cost of yard maintenance, though. It usually reduces the amount of work required for upkeep, which leaves more time for enjoying your yard.

Replacing Traditional Lawns

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “…maintenance over a 20-year span for a non-native turf grass landscape can cost almost seven times more than the cumulative costs of maintenance for a native prairie or wetland.” The high cost of maintaining a traditional lawn isn’t just economic, though. Research shows that lawn maintenance produces greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

The fertilizer and pesticides commonly used are also a source of potential pollution of groundwater. As public awareness of the negative environmental impact of traditional lawn maintenance has increased, many states have begun providing information for their residents on how they can make their own home environments as healthy as they are welcoming.

For those who love greenery and the look of a lawn, one alternative is planting clover. Clover contains natural insect repellents and competes well against weeds, reducing the need for pesticides.

Native Plants

One way to reduce water costs and honor the particular environment you’ve chosen as your home is by using plants that are native to your area. Native plants require less maintenance and they have developed a natural resistance to common pests and diseases, reducing the need to use pesticides. An additional benefit is that they attract beneficial insects and local wildlife.

Xeriscaping is a set of seven design principles introduced in Colorado to help people utilize native plants to help conserve water. Some critics claim that these principles limit their choices too much. However, if plants native to your area don’t provide enough variety, there are many disease-resistant plants available that provide beauty as well as variety.

Garden Plots

Growing concerns about the health effects of genetically modified foods is another reason many people are choosing to replace at least part of their lawns with low-maintenance garden plots that produce fresh organic fruits and vegetables. According to experts, drip irrigation systems deliver water directly to your plants with 90 percent efficiency, compared to the 50 to 70 percent efficiency of traditional sprinkler systems.

This new trend has led many communities to begin gardening cooperatives in which each member grows one or two items, and everyone comes together to trade items after the harvest. One advantage is that everyone is able to enjoy a wide variety of fresh vegetables without the difficult task of creating multiple soil conditions and planting and watering schedules for different plants. Fruit trees provide shade in addition to fresh fruit, and also raise real estate values. Deciduous trees that drop their leaves in the fall can help cool your home in the summer and provide compost for flower beds. Trees typically don’t require much maintenance so there’s really no reason you should skip on planting some in your garden!

Natural Pesticides

Unlike chemical pesticides, natural pesticides won’t seep into the ground water causing contamination of drinking water. One natural pesticide, made from the pyrethrum plant (Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium) is rated highly effective against a large number of insects.

Another natural pesticide can be made by soaking ground onions or garlic in warm water overnight. After straining, the liquid is sprayed on flowers and fruit trees. This natural insecticide is especially effective against aphids and apple borers.

These examples of eco-friendly landscaping prove that we can help preserve the earth without sacrificing beauty or variety.

Sources: