Rain gardens can be beautiful and kind to the earth

We stood on the edge of a sunken garden, its depth disguised by the riot of color and texture it held, the group of admiring gardeners noting its beauty with nary a mention of the often considered caveat, “It’s pretty ... for a rain garden.”

The garden in question was included on a garden tour at a Pennsylvania college campus and arboretum, where it was a crucial part of a stormwater management system, but you wouldn’t know that if you were walking past it.

Rain gardens are not new, but I think there’s a good argument to be made that rain garden design has come a long way in recent years. This is likely because not only have homeowners embraced the idea of managing stormwater on their properties, but in some cases because municipalities are requiring them to. 

Ozaukee County is among the entities encouraging and offering incentives for homeowners living near waterways to install rain gardens.

The concept behind such gardens is simple — create a catchment area for rain water to allow it to soak into the soil rather than flow into storm drains or directly into waterways, reducing runoff, replenishing groundwater and improving water quality.

And, like most things, such gardens can be utilitarian and simply get the job done, or they can be beautiful design features that just happen to have an important purpose beyond aesthetics.

Rain garden construction starts with a depression, from several inches to a few feet deep, depending on the amount of water it is expected to handle and the soil composition. Home rain gardens are usually relatively small, from 100 to 300 square feet, although there’s no reason they can’t be part of a larger garden.

But the art of a good rain garden lies in plant selection. Rain gardens are designed to fill up with water, then drain slowly,  sometimes over the course of a couple days. This means that plants need to be able to tolerate both periods of wet conditions and extended dry periods, and moisture-loving plants aren’t necessarily the best choice.

Rain gardens are very well suited to native plants, which are generally quite adaptable once established, and homeowners needn’t be wary of them turning into unkempt spaces. Careful selection of plants and consideration of nativars —cultivated varieties of native plants — can be used to create a beautiful, intentional garden.

The internet is full of lists of native rain garden plants, but it’s worth doing extra research before shopping, as some native plants are not appropriate for small garden spaces. Some milkweeds, for instance, have a tendency to run wild, so while they are important plants, they probably aren’t the best for a 100 -square-foot garden that they will quickly overwhelm.

Rain gardens have come a long way, both in design and perception. And it begs the question: What if we just thought of them as gardens that handle rainwater well? Our yards and waterways would probably be much better for it, but we’d also have more beautiful gardens to enjoy.