My Climate Change Garden

A rain garden takes the rain from your roof and puts it to good use. Even a small terraced house gets 4000 gallons on each side of the roof.

Rain gardens are nothing new, In the Mediterranean, sun-kissed gardeners have been building sinks to store rain water for hundreds of years. More recently, rain water has been harvested in Australia and the USA as water becomes more valuable and populations increase.

Having a rain garden is an ideal and simple way to harvest rainwater and makes a very attractive feature for all gardens.

For gardeners soft rain water is ideal for your garden plants, particularly rhodedendrons, camellias, azaleas and orchids. With recent news of droughts many gardeners will be looking for ways of being resourceful with rain water and installing a water butt is a great way to start being resourceful. Once the water butt is full however, the water reverts to the sewers. A rain garden takes the overflow from the water butt to fill or top-up a pond and even a soakaway unit in which you can grow vegetables or marsh plants. (A Soakaway is a method of water disposal (usually surface water) that disperses water from drains leading to it, provided surrounding soil conditions are suitable).

In urban areas most rain water goes straight into the sewers which means that during heavy storms the sewers overflow into our rivers. So part of the rain garden is a soakaway unit which allows rain water to drain away naturally..

Rain from your roof can be diverted from the down pipe into a water butt, which overflows into an above ground pond which is great for water lilies. The water then flows along a bamboo channel to a raised planter/soakaway unit which is great for growing veg.

The rain garden concept is extremely environmentally-friendly and, at a time of water metering by many water companies, economically-friendly on the wallet too!

By harvesting rain water and holding it in butts and ponds, gardeners can create their own wetland centre as well as providing a plentiful supply of soft water for general watering duties.

Rain gardens are a definite trend of the future with the concrete jungle that we now find ourselves living in and flood plains commonly being built on rain gardens are a fantastic way to preserve water allowing you to easily maintain flowers and crops regardless of the season. With an additional factor being that is a beautiful addition to any garden, creates habitat for birds and beneficial insects, reduces pest and harmful insects as well as contribution to pollution, and can be used seasonally to teach children about nature.

Learn more or build your own Rain Garden Kits at: http://www.raingardenkits.co.uk/