Weekly Green Tip: The Anatomy of Rain Garden 🪨

http://eepurl.com/jt58QsView this email in your browser (*|ARCHIVE|*) RESERVE YOUR SPOT! (https://communityfoodscapes.org/products/permaculture-design-certificate) The Anatomy of a Rain Garden December 9th, 2025 At its simplest… A rain garden is a shallow, planted depression designed to catch and hold stormwater. Instead of letting runoff skim across your property and into the sewers, a rain garden slows it down and soaks it into the ground. A well-built rain garden includes the inflow where the water enters, the basin where the water collects, the plants, and the overflow where the water can spill out safely and intentionally. The inflow might be a downspout extension, a swale or dry creek cut into a slope, or an existing, well-established depression in the landscape. The basin or the sunken bowl that holds the water is typically layered with a mix of gravel, soil, and mulch for infiltration. The rooted native plants that we choose can handle both wet feet and dry spells. The overflow is the escape hatch. If a huge storm comes through there needs to be a plan. Sometimes the topography will already offer an effective overflow. Oftentimes, we will carve a spillway that gently directs the excess away from homes and structures. Sunken vs. Bermed Rain Gardens A sunken rain garden is the simplest and most open style because you excavate a basin but you don’t surround it with berms. Because of this, it accepts water from all directions. These types of rain gardens use the natural topography to drain toward the basin, so it works best when the site already has a low point where water gathers. This sunken rain garden will allow water from all directions and also accept water from nearby downspouts A bermed rain garden still starts with a dug basin, just like the sunken style but you build raised berms (or small hills) along one or more sides. Those berms: * Hold water on slopes * Can increase the capacity of your rain garden * Shape how water enters the basin * Prevent water from spilling out the wrong direction * Allow you to create a rain garden even when the land doesn’t naturally collect water Berms are perfect for when we encounter sloped yards without a perfect existing depression in the landscape. Earth-shaping berms is very common when we have a defined inflow point and a defined overflow point. An inflow point—for example, a dry creek! We often run our dry creek beds directly into a rain garden… A sloped terrain like this means a gentle berm on the downhill side of this rain garden will increase our capacity and resist runoff from immediately spilling out. The uphill side is left level with the earth so water can run into it naturally. This rain garden was on an extreme slope, so a very large berm was created on the downhill side. Can you see the planned overflow point? A rain garden is one of the few investments that benefits you, your neighbors, and your entire city all at once. They reduce flooding on your property and beyond, help out your city’s systems, improve water quality downstream, and replicate natural systems within the neighborhood! GET YOURS TODAY! (https://communityfoodscapes.org/pages/consultation) Fall beauty comes in abundance with this shrub… Our plant of the month is the charming (and wonderfully tough) Witch Alder or otherwise known by its genus, Fothergilla. It is a native woodland shrub that lights up spring with bottlebrush blooms and closes the show in fall with some of THE BEST foliage color in the Southeast. It’s a slow, steady grower that settles beautifully into part-shade gardens and woodland borders. Plant it to fill the small shrub horizon in your landscape. And it’s not picky! Chances are you have a spot for one. Sun: Full sun to part shade Soil: Moist, acidic, well-drained soils — adaptable once established Height: 3–6 ft tall (depending on species/cultivar) Width: 3–5 ft wide ** Why We Love It ------------------------------------------------------------ Spring fireworks: Witch Alder sends out soft, fragrant, white bottlebrush flowers that light up the understory and feed our early emerging pollinators just waking up from the winter. Gorgeous fall color: Orange, yellow, amber, scarlet… Fothergilla is known for having some of the most vivid and reliable fall foliage of all of our native shrubs. Woodland native: Naturally found in the Southeast’s upland woods and piedmont forests, it’s right at home in part shade and acidic soils. Low-maintenance & resilient: Slow-growing, drought-tolerant once established, and resistant to common pests and diseases — it’s a plant you can tuck in and forget. CLICK HERE FOR WITCHALDER (https://communityfoodscapes.org/products/witch-alder) AND REMEMBER! All CoFo consultations are half off! The cold weather is quietly the best season to make big landscape moves. Roots keep growing long after leaves drop, low soil temperatures reduce stress on new plantings, winter rain keeps everything hydrated, and pests take a break. This is also the perfect moment to start planning for the busy spring and get expert eyes on that tricky corner of your landscape. Cooler weather = peak planning season, and we’re here to help you make the most of it. Book now and let’s build next year’s landscape while nature is on your side. CLICK HERE TO BOOK WITH US! (https://communityfoodscapes.org/pages/consultation) https://facebook.com/communityfoodscapes/ https://instagram.com/communityfoodscapes https://communityfoodscapes.org mailto: Copyright (C) *|CURRENT_YEAR|* *|LIST:COMPANY|*. All rights reserved. *|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|**|LIST:DESCRIPTION|**|END:IF|* Want to change how you receive these emails? 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