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How To Plant a RAIN Garden
RAIN Gardens scheme provides free plants and compost packs to help reduce surface water run-off and improve flood resilience for residents living in Wootton Brook & Harpers Brook catchments.
Firstly, what is a RAIN garden?
A RAIN garden is a small recessed garden area, planted full of plants that enjoy more boggy conditions. You will be directing the water coming from a downspout on the side of your property into the RAIN garden, and then out the other side of the garden to a drainage area. This can be achieved by connecting more downspout (provided) or digging a small trench and lining it with pebbles (to prevent erosion).
RAIN gardens help hold back the water, and filter it, before it enters the storm-water system. It also adds a great bio diversity habitat!
By taking part, you can play a direct role in managing water flow within your community and mitigate local flood risks.
How do you plant a RAIN Garden?
We have created a helpful ‘how to’ video, which you can access here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA0v3UerGtk
What to Consider:
1.Location
2.Drainage
3.Size
4.Shape
5.Connecting your garden to the downspout
1.Location: Your RAIN gardens needs to be more than 3m away from any property foundations, but not so far from your downspout that you can’t connect the garden to the downspout. The outlet point of the RAIN garden needs to be facing an area that is safe to direct excess water away from your house, and not into the neighbours either. If you are planting on a sloped area, ensure the ground is not sloping towards your house. Be aware of services that may run underground (check at lsbud.co.uk)
2.Drainage: In an ideal world, your soil will drain at about 1 inch per hour. Once you’ve decided where you want your garden to go, dig a slim hole (approx 10cm in diameter, and 15cms deep), fill it with water, and come back in an hour to see how much has soaked away. If your soil is draining really slowly, you can either change location or just dig your rain garden a little deeper.
3.Size: The size of your rain garden should be about 10% the area of the roof that will be sending water to your chosen downspout. This will not necessarily be your whole house’s roof. You should aim to have a depth of roughly 1ft in the centre of the garden, gently sloping upwards.
4.Shape: Your RAIN garden can be any shape that suits your aesthetic! Create a bund with the soil you dig up around the lower-lying edges of the garden, to make sure the ‘walls’ are level, and will contain the water.
5.Connecting your garden to the downspout: This can be done in one of two ways.
Option 1: Attaching another piece of downpipe onto the end of your downspout, and positioning it to allow water to flow directly to the inlet point of your RAIN garden.
Option 2: Digging a shallow trench from your downspout to the inlet point of your RAIN garden, and filling it with pebbles (to prevent erosion). Once you’ve planted your RAIN garden, or marked out where you want it to go, let us knowhow many metres away from your downspout it is, and we will provide the piping.
All this information and more is captured in our YouTube tutorial! If you have any questions, please email us atrain@westnorthants.gov.uk
Register to take part!
We have around 100 packs to give away (first come, first served basis). If you’d like to take part, please check that your property is within our catchment – maps can be seen here:
Harpers Brook Map: https://nfm.hrwallingford.com/main/rain-harpers
Wootton Brook Map: https://nfm.hrwallingford.com/main/rain-wootton
To apply, register your details via this link: https://rainnorthants.co.uk/rain-gardens/ or email rain@westnorthants.gov.uk.
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The RAIN Project is funded by Defra as part of the £200 million Flood and Coastal Innovation Programmes, which is managed by the Environment Agency. The programmes will drive innovation in flood and coastal resilience and adaptation to a changing climate.
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