Clean Water Works
Build Your Own Rain Garden
Have you ever wondered how your green thumb can help the environment? Stormwater Technical Specialist Chris Hartman explains how to install and maintain a thriving rain garden to help control stormwater runoff: from choosing a site and garden size, to selecting the right plants and methods. Plus, you can earn a credit towards your stormwater fee!
Rain Garden Manual for Homeowners [PDF]
Before you dig:
Ohio Utilities Protection Service (OUPS)
Have you ever wondered how your green thumb can help the environment? Stormwater Technical Specialist Chris Hartman explains how to install and maintain a thriving rain garden to help control stormwater runoff: from choosing a site and garden size, to selecting the right plants and methods. Plus, you can earn a credit towards your stormwater fee!
Rain Garden Manual for Homeowners [PDF]
Before you dig:
Ohio Utilities Protection Service (OUPS)
I need to wash my hands, I just moved everything from one office to another office. What do you mean? Did you get a new office? Is that a window? It does have a window.
Speaker 2:I was like man, I need a window, I'm losing my mind. I'm like it's always something I'm like so light, sensitive is really obnoxious. It's so obnoxious it's annoying to me. I get it from my mom. She's the same way with everything Light noise, just like highly sensitive. It's really annoying to be me and to be around me.
Speaker 1:Spring is here. People are breaking out lawnmowers, planting flowers and we thought this would be a great time to talk about some of our stormwater control measures, specifically rain gardens. Chris Hartman is an employee of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. He is a stormwater technical specialist in our watershed programs department, so welcome, chris.
Speaker 3:Thank you, mike. Thank you Donna. Appreciate being here. Donna, how's it going?
Speaker 2:Good. Thank you, mike. Thank you Donna. Appreciate being here. Donna, how's it going? Good? I received a. What did I get? A winter berry. Is that a thing? That's a thing, that's a thing that's a thing. I got one of those over the weekend.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:Is that a native?
Speaker 3:plant.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 3:Did you get a male or a female?
Speaker 2:I didn't ask. I felt like that was rude.
Speaker 3:You need one of each.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 3:Why? Because of the cross-pollination. If you want the berries.
Speaker 2:Oh Well, I want the berries.
Speaker 3:Female has the berries.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 3:So you need a male plant nearby.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh Does it say on the tag of the plant that you got.
Speaker 2:I got it from a friend. I'll ask said friend if they know. So it's like a blueberry bush sort of you're like, it's like every plant donna. Well, I guess I could get one of each and then just like you'd be set. Call it good right because I want the birds. You know, that's where I'm really is this for a rain garden?
Speaker 1:are you planning on putting one?
Speaker 2:I'm not quite there in my house house life yet. But I did have a dream last night about mowing the lawn, so I think that means I'm officially a homeowner. When you start dreaming about doing really menial, boring house things, so um and then I woke up and the lawn wasn't mowed, so that sucked.
Speaker 1:But I guess I'll have to do that later.
Speaker 2:It was only a dream, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's one of the benefits of having a rain garden right it's less lawn to maintain.
Speaker 2:That's true too.
Speaker 3:Less lawn, yes, but other plants to maintain sure.
Speaker 1:A rain garden is a type of stormwater control measure. Correct what is a stormwater?
Speaker 3:control measure? Correct. What is a stormwater control measure? Stormwater control measure is any type of practice that helps to manage stormwater runoff quantity or quality, to mitigate the impacts of the change of land use from, say, any kind of vegetation to an impervious surface of some type, like rooftops and driveways and parking lots, things like that.
Speaker 2:Like a rain barrel.
Speaker 3:A rain barrel is a type of stormwater control measure.
Speaker 2:yes, Ding, ding, that's a very small scale.
Speaker 3:And then we have the large ones, like stormwater basins that will serve like a shopping center or homeowners association, something to that effect.
Speaker 1:So the stormwater would run off the parking lot into one of these basins to collect it, instead of entering the Sewer system.
Speaker 3:Correct. Well, it eventually could still enter the sewer system, but it helps to clean the water up potentially and, of course, release it slowly. They're intended to mimic what the conditions were before the land was developed.
Speaker 1:Okay, and rain gardens are one such stormwater control measure and probably one of the easier ones for folks to utilize on their property.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so they're small scale. They're designed really to kind of treat a small impervious area like a rooftop or a driveway. They perform or they look very much like any other landscape bed. The biggest difference is, instead of a landscape bed being kind of elevated a little bit above the lawn elevation, like mounded they're depressed into the ground. They're kind of like a bowl in the ground that's purposely designed to allow stormwater to collect within it.
Speaker 2:What kind of plants would one use in a rain garden?
Speaker 3:What kind of plants would one use in a rain garden? So the rain garden, think of it as an area that's going to be really wet at times and also really dry at times. The ebb and flow of the storms that pass through kind of dictate that, of course, and so the plants that are best suited for those are the ones that can tolerate those conditions, and those are the ones that are often found in floodplain situations in nature, and so their feet can tolerate the wetness and the dryness for extended periods of time. So they are most suitable. And I mean there's a wide, wide array of plants you can use. It's anything from perennials to grasses, trees, shrubs, I mean there's pretty much anything you can think of that can tolerate those situations, is suitable.
Speaker 2:So like, walk me through it. I just got a house. I have a downspout. I don't want it to go into the area around my foundation before it goes out to the storm combined sewer, because I'm in Cleveland. So if I were to disconnect that downspout and run it to a rain garden, what would be my first step?
Speaker 3:Your first step would be to contact your local community to make sure that you're allowed to do it, for one thing.
Speaker 2:Some towns don't allow it, I will call up Mayor Bibb and ask nicely.
Speaker 3:There you go. So there's a few towns that will not allow you to do that and many more that will require you to get a permit, at least to make sure that if you do it, you're doing it properly, so it doesn't negatively impact your house or your neighbor's house, of course. So that would be step one.
Speaker 2:All right, so I pop online, I check the code. If I can't find it in the code, then I call the building department, correct? And I say hey, hey, I want to install a rain garden.
Speaker 3:And then they'll tell me what to do from there. Yes, generally. So they may have their own prescription of what you must do, but of course there's lots of resources out there that can help you with the design, where to place it, things like that.
Speaker 1:Okay, we do have a reference manual called the Rain Garden Manual for Homeowners. Folks can access this by just going to our website or typing in Rain Garden Manual for Homeowners, which I did about 10 minutes ago and it was the first one that came up.
Speaker 2:Wow, look at that.
Speaker 1:So all the steps that we're going to talk about you can reference later in that. So next step, Step two.
Speaker 3:So you got the okay to do it right. So what's the best spot to put it? On my property? And that really comes down to what are your goals of the rain garden? Are you trying to solve a problem or are you just trying to capture runoff for the sake of improving and doing your part with regards to stormwater management on a local level? Where you don't want to situate it is in an area that's already ponding. If you have a low area in your property and every time it rains there's a little bit of water that sits there for days, that is not the spot to put a rain garden.
Speaker 2:But that's where the water is already.
Speaker 3:Right, but that's also telling you it doesn't drain. Well, right there. So there you go. So what you want to do is intercept that source of water that feeds that low area. So perhaps there's a downspout that daylights onto the ground and that's the main source of the water ponding in your yard. Well, you want to put that rain garden between the downspout and that low spot, if possible, of course, so that you're soaking it up before it gets there.
Speaker 2:Higher ground that may infiltrate better. All right, so I picked the spot.
Speaker 3:So rain gardens are kind of generally sized on three different things you need to look at. First of all, how deep do you want it to be? Like? What's the maximum ponding depth you would want to see during a heavy rainstorm? Remember that won't last long, but that's your depth. The deeper it is, the smaller the footprint has to be to collect the water, of course, Because volume yes.
Speaker 3:The second thing to think about is well, what is the drainage area coming to it? Do I have a shed? I've got a couple hundred square feet of impervious rooftop. That's coming to it. Or do I have a house? Do I have 1,000 square feet coming to it? That makes a difference in terms of how big this needs to be.
Speaker 1:So you have to do some calculations at that time.
Speaker 3:A little bit, yeah, and the manual we referenced earlier can walk you through all that. But the third thing to think about is the soil types you have. Do you have sandy soils or do you have a lot of clay in your soil, which we have a lot of clay in this area but the sandier the soil is, the smaller it can be and still absorb the water. But it's important to note that there's no rain garden that's too big or too small. They're all going to do some good. And if it's too small, as long as it's designed to have an overflow of some type that isn't going to hurt your neighbor or your house, that's perfectly fine. You'll still capture some stormwater and the rest can just move on down the road like it has in the past.
Speaker 1:Do people have other concerns about putting in a rain garden?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, some of the big concerns are people think these are ponds and they are not ponds. They're supposed to drain within 48 hours, so you'll see standing water in it and that means it's doing its job, but it should be gone within two days, as long as it doesn't continue raining. Of course. A big question people ask is are mosquitoes an issue? And again, remember that mosquitoes have a life cycle that's seven to 12 days in the water. So if that garden is draining within 48 hours each time, that won't be an issue. Those larvae won't live through that situation.
Speaker 2:I think maintenance too maintenance and upkeep people may get a little ambitious. I know in some of our project sites we planted tons of different types of species and sometimes that makes it harder to know in the early seasons what's a weed and what's not. So making sure you know what you're planting and how much maintenance they're going to need.
Speaker 3:Yeah, maintenance, you know these aren't a plant it and forget it, kind of thing. I mean, you don't put any landscape in and just let it go right. Unless you want it to be naturalized over time, that's fine, you know. But Unless you want it to be naturalized over time, that's fine. But for these types of features, typically you're going to select your plants. There's a lot to think about with plants and so many varieties of things you can look at, but, like Donna said, it's a matter of making sure you know what you planted. Where Groupings of plants are recommended, like three to seven of the same species in a given spot scattered around, they have more of a visual impact, but then they're easy to identify as well. Weeds don't grow in groups of three to seven, they grow randomly so it's easier to know what was there, so that's helpful.
Speaker 3:you know, throughout the year there's different things need to be done, depending on the age of the rain garden as well. That will demand different things. You know, the day you put it in you're going to be watering it a lot to get those plants established. If you don't have the rain, you need to get it going, but once the plants mature, you know you won't have to do that as much anymore. Obviously, throughout the seasons of the year things change, especially winter. There's different approaches at how to maintain these things during winter and again, it really depends on the plants you have.
Speaker 3:But we have a rain garden right out back of our building, right here. We just did some maintenance on that one and we left the stalks from last year's plants about two feet above ground, because that's habitat for a lot of critters, a lot of good bugs and bees and things like that. They'll use those. But those are decisions that need to be made as part of maintenance. What do I do before winter or what do I do early spring to get it ready to grow for the next year?
Speaker 2:So I just start digging, I pick the location, I disconnect the downspout, I just start digging.
Speaker 3:No, no, okay, have you called oops yet?
Speaker 2:No, there it is. What's it do?
Speaker 3:Ohio Utility Protection Service.
Speaker 2:Oh, even if I'm in my own front yard, I still have to call oops.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you just never know what might be lying there.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 3:Gas line, water line, um electrical lines, even though you're digging shallow it's always smart to do that. So then they'll come mark it out. At least what they know of they'll mark. Uh, so you don't mess with it.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, call it Oops.
Speaker 3:They'll give you the best information available.
Speaker 1:Great, okay, all right. There's a key difference between a rain garden and a regular garden. Right? It's not just a little hole you're digging for a plant, you're actually excavating.
Speaker 3:You're excavating, but it's generally pretty shallow. Usually it's four to eight inches is all you need to go.
Speaker 2:After the turf is up Starting from the turf. From the turf down.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's best to kill the vegetation ahead of time where you're putting it, just so you have an exact knowledge of what your elevation is. Of course, yeah, especially if you're eliminating a shrubby area to make your rain garden, but most people do it in the grass. So once you do that, you know, it's shrubby, that's right.
Speaker 2:Full of bramels and thickets. These are all good words.
Speaker 3:These are all excellent words yeah, uh, maybe you're on a slope, maybe you're not, and you have to account for that. Uh, if you're in a, on a, on a slope, uh, you might need to build, like, as you dig, you might need to build a berm on the low end of your, of your, of your rain garden, uh, to kind of create a a level ponding area. Um, if you're on a flat area, it's just a matter of digging down and creating that bowl. If you will and I shouldn't say you should dig a bowl the bottom should be flat to maximize infiltration. The final look could look like a bowl once you shape it properly, but the bottom should be excavated flat.
Speaker 2:So if I'm in the city of Cleveland, my soils aren't great. Do I have to amend the soils with anything?
Speaker 3:Potentially yes. So again, it really depends what you're starting with. If you have nice sandy soils, you're in good shape. You might want to add some compost, some garden compost, to it, to just make sure that it has enough organics in it to support the plants that you put in it. It has enough organics in it to support the plants that you put in it. The ideal soil mix is about 60% sand, about 30% topsoil and about another 10% compost.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of sand.
Speaker 3:It can be yes, Wow.
Speaker 3:But, that's what allows the water to kind of filter through the soil. It's not always necessary to completely excavate and replace the soil that you removed, but that is helpful with regard to when you have poor soils that are high in clay content. I think we all know clay won't absorb the water very well. And keep in mind too, one thing I like to tell folks lessons I've learned on some rain gardens I've worked on. All right, you dig the hole, you backfill with nice soil, you put your plants in. It doesn't just magically start infiltrating. The key is with the plants. Once the plants mature, their root structure will go deep. Some of these plants, the roots can go 8, nine, 10 feet deep in the right situation. That's what creates the cavities for the water to go into the ground. If you have less than ideal soil, so even in clay.
Speaker 1:that'll work if you have the right plant, Right, Right.
Speaker 3:So I mean some plants go deeper than others. Clay is always a barrier, but your best opportunity for infiltration is get the right plants.
Speaker 2:In that situation, is it ever recommended to like try to establish your rain garden before you disconnect your downspout and point it into it?
Speaker 3:that's really a great idea. I mean, yeah, um, before you flood it, if you will, or introduce the flooding potential, uh, let those plants mature for a couple of a year, at least a year, maybe that's not a bad idea. One thing we've tried is to provide some artificial drainage, temporary, until the plants survive, like we'll put a perforated underdrain at the bottom of it that allows that water to discharge so it doesn't sit there too long. And you could easily put a valve on the end of that pipe to open it up and shut it down and kind of play with the garden, see how it responds, let it fill up and if it's not draining, okay, open that valve up and let it drain so those plants don't die. But you don't want that to be permanent because then you kind of defeat the purpose of the rain garden. So it's just to help the plants establish themselves.
Speaker 1:So how do you get the water from your rooftop into the rain garden?
Speaker 3:So there's a couple different options. One of the most popular ones is to take the downspout directly to it. Now, the general rule of thumb is the rain garden shouldn't be within 10 feet of a foundation, and that's the best case scenario. Sometimes it should be further than that, depending on which way the land slopes and where your neighbors are. It should be at least 10 feet away from your neighbor's foundation too. Keep in mind, if it's a short run from your house corner to the rain garden, then you can easily route your downspout to that.
Speaker 3:Some people get very creative. Where they'll end their downspout? Where their lawn starts and they'll put a dry creek bread. Look to that will continue. That conveyance of that water to the actual rain garden, you know if it has to be 10, 20, 30 feet away so you could pipe it all the way. Bury that pipe if you have the slope to do that, you know you could just have grass swales that feed it. It doesn't have to be concentrated. Flow into it as long as the water gets to it eventually somehow some way.
Speaker 2:And you probably don't want it coming in too hot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that can erode where it enters the garden if it's coming in right at the end of a pipe. So you'd want to have some kind of way to dissipate that water coming in so that the energy doesn't blow out that immediate area where the pipe ends.
Speaker 2:Do you have any favorite plants that you like to put or that you would put in if you were to do this?
Speaker 3:One of the things to think about with plants is deer tolerance. Ah yes, things to think about with plants is deer tolerance. I live in Lake County and we have a. We have a deer population. It's quite healthy, so it's tough. You know they. Everything I buy they seem to eat. So I'll just share with you. The the only thing I've ever put in that they have never touched in my yard are grasses like switchgrass, for example. They don't seem to touch it.
Speaker 2:Can you have a rain garden that's mostly grasses.
Speaker 3:You could yeah, you can have a rain garden that's lawn if you want to, if you have good sandy soils and you just hey, I just want to do my part to protect our streams.
Speaker 1:You could easily put a depression in your lawn that you can mow through if you want and it would be shallow and broad, perhaps easily put a depression in your lawn that you can mow through if you want, and it would be shallow and broad, perhaps Like a rain garden in disguise.
Speaker 2:It's like the tuxedo shirt of rain gardens.
Speaker 1:I don't think that phrase has ever been uttered before. The rain garden manual for homeowners has a suggested plant list for your rain garden. It's broken up into different categories flowering plants, grasses, ferns.
Speaker 3:Ideally, you use native plants because we know they can survive these situations. You don't have to Zones of the USDA zones for vegetation of what will work and suggestions of combinations of plants and what looks good together. You have to think about, well, how tall do I want my plants and do I want different heights? Which is an interesting look to a lot of gardens is they have short, medium and high growth plants. To a lot of gardens is that you have short, medium and high growth plants. Do you want everything to bloom in the spring and everything's just green the rest of the year, or do you want different plants to bloom different times of year so that you have color all year long?
Speaker 3:Sun versus shade you can do both. Obviously, if you have sunny areas, you can have a lot more options for plants. If your rain garden happens to pick up your driveway runoff and you salt your driveway, well, you have to think about plants that are salt tolerant now as well. I think grasses do the best. Again, I'm a little biased because of my healthy deer population, but I've never had trouble with them. Not a lot of color, but they do offer a lot of texture.
Speaker 3:And that's another thing, too is a lot of folks talk about the texture of your landscape Big leaves, tiny little leaves, seed heads, no seed heads, that's all texture, and having a variety of that is appealing to a lot of people, yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, and if you were to do this, if I were to do this, you could get a credit from the sewer district.
Speaker 3:Yes, you could. So this is one of the options that the sewer district offers for homeowners to earn as part of the residential credit program. There's about eight or 10 different things folks can do, and this is one of them. You can reduce your stormwater fee by 25 percent if you have at least 25% of your total roof area going to a rain garden that's the qualifier or an equivalent area of driveway. You could do that as well, but based on our fees today, you can save. It's not a lot, but you can save $10 to $30 a year on your stormwater fee by putting in a rain garden that qualifies.
Speaker 3:So there's an application that would need to be submitted with the sewer district. You know there's criteria that needs to be met Like, for example, I said, the rain garden you have to. 25% of your total roof area has to go to the garden, or gardens doesn't matter. So you have to show us that's what you're accomplishing for us to consider it, and so once you submit all that information to us, our folks will review that and work with you to do everything we can to make sure that you qualify. We'll get you there somehow.
Speaker 2:So the credit is good on the residential side for three years, and then we'll reach out and contact you requesting you to sign something saying that the stormwater management feature is still intact. And that's about it. It's pretty easy. If anybody has trouble, they can always call us and ask for assistance.
Speaker 1:Is a big part of your job advising people on stormwater control measures.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So as a stormwater technical specialist which is a fun title as a stormwater technical specialist which is a fun title I work with a wide variety of customers and a wide variety of stormwater management opportunities, if you will, but anywhere from your traditional large stormwater management basins that are there to serve a whole development, a brand new subdivision, perhaps, or a shopping center. More commonly, work on a lot of green infrastructure, and that's where we're starting to talk about rain gardens. The rain garden's big brother is the bioretention cell, and bioretention cells look almost identical to a rain garden, but they're designed to handle a lot larger drainage areas. They perform more of a filtering function cleaning up dirty water, especially off of parking lots, where you have a lot of car debris and oil drippings and things like that.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:Chris, how did you end up at the sewer district? Great question, donna. My career has always been stormwater management related. I just always had an interest in large-scale construction and stormwater. I know I'm weird, but I had a professor in college. I went to Kent State and you always have that one professor that just kind of inspires you. Well, it just so happened he loved stormwater management and he just you always have that one professor that just kind of inspires you. Well, it just so happened, he loved stormwater management and he inspired me. That's cool. So I just got into it.
Speaker 3:I enjoyed it and worked in Franklin County for a little bit, worked in Medina County at the Soil and Water Conservation Districts for about 10 years, worked in the private sector about 10 years doing the same kind of thing. So it was good. I saw both sides of the story, public and private. My previous employer the private sector like a year maybe into that job Mr Frank Greenland, visited us to talk to us about this idea of a stormwater, a regional stormwater management program. He was seeking input from the private sector. What do you guys think about this? I just remember walking out of that meeting because I was invited to attend by my boss thinking like I think I want to work for that guy someday.
Speaker 3:I like what they're talking about. I like the private sector, but you had to make money. You're there to make money and so everything had that umbrella over it of is this profitable to do or not? I missed having come from the public sector, just doing the right thing because it's the right thing, as long as it didn't lose you money, I guess. So that's why I kind of was hoping someday I'd find my way here. So it just worked out.
Speaker 2:Well, we're happy to have you Well thank you. Feel free to stay around for a while.
Speaker 1:Chris Hartman, stormwater technical specialist here at the Super District. Thank you so much for joining us talking all about rain gardens.
Speaker 3:All right, it was a pleasure.
Speaker 1:Thanks for your wisdom.
Speaker 3:You're quite welcome.