Browse Forums Eco Living 1 Dec 03, 2014 9:38 am Who's installed one to manage water runoff on their property? I'm buying a large rural residenial lot and hope to make use of one as a landscaping design feature. Draining water runoff from the home and pooling it a little cluster of sedge plants like Japanese iris and water chestnut or vetiver. Re: Rain Gardens 2Dec 03, 2014 11:32 am Are you talking just drain runoff and using a tank ? And maybe a dam ? My main garden water comes from a tank. So - is my garden a rain garden ? Sorry - not to sure on the term. Re: Rain Gardens 3Dec 03, 2014 12:45 pm Its kind of like dams but without the scale of a dam. Its where you channel excess runoff from your home paving or overflow from your tank into a dry creek bed that terminates in a little manmade wetland instead of funneling it directy into a storm water drain. This wetland is only a shallow depression in the ground that stores minimal water and encourages the plants to consume it and dries out from time to time. Metropolitan homes with space are being encouraged to make one to try and slow the runoff into storm water drains and keeping it on the property. Its basically swales in action. But many are very beautifully done made to look like natural creek beds with many ornamental plants. There is one is a small park near my home. The council just finished it. Was was once just drab lawn and a tree is now a very attractive nAtural looking watercourse. Councils are advocating them to help minimise the flash flooding of storm water drains that causes a fair amount of damage to roads. Just slowing down the velocity of the water and encouraging small amounts to be retained on the block and used. Re: Rain Gardens 4Dec 03, 2014 1:43 pm My excess doesn't go to the stormwater. I have a tank - then it goes to the golf course - behind - filling the water traps. Re: Rain Gardens 5Dec 03, 2014 3:18 pm Big houses on small blocks with minimal permeable areas put enormous strain on the stormwater system and waterways, resulting in some new estates having a mandate for rain gardens to both mitigate and filter stormwater discharge. In Victoria, Melbourne Water has actively encouraged rain gardens for probably 7-8 years now. The most common type are systems enclosed by suitable liners and these entail the water seeping through sandy soils and then draining through an ag pipe to the stormwater system. This gives the dual benefit of stormwater detention during heavy rain and cleaner water entering the waterways. http://www.melbournewater.com.au/getinv ... rdens.aspx With diminished permeable space in many areas, a rain garden should ideally be used in conjunction with a rainwater tank and groundwater recharge. Groundwater levels and quality were ignored for many years but there is now an impetus towards increased monitoring and better management of this precious resource. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: Rain Gardens 6Dec 04, 2014 9:37 pm We created one of sorts 10 years ago, in a natural depression at the bottom of our garden leading to a gully. We have a stormwater easement from the street along one side of the house, and rubbish kept getting washed down the gully, which lead to weeds and unsightly plastic material. So we created a permeable dam using rocks, stabilised with Lomandra Hystrix (as we needed quite a few, we used tubestock from a local native garden nursery), as well as a few swamp lilies for fragrance and height. We also tried some other strappy plants for different foliage colour, but they didn't survive. It works a treat; no more weeds into our gully, and rubbish is trapped in a more accessible area. The run off down the gully is slower as it has to seep through the embankment and roots through it, and is spread over a wider area. Re: Rain Gardens 7Dec 07, 2014 1:43 pm Quote: Metropolitan homes with space are being encouraged to make one to try and slow the runoff into storm water drains and keeping it on the property. Even if you don't have the space to do this some councils like ours will make you build an onsite stormwater retention tank once you increase the hard surface of your block over a certain percentage even if you wanted to build a swale or similar. Friends of ours in the Blue Mountains who had a five acre block that had a pretty crappy swimming pool about forty metres from their house built into a natural depression when they bought the place. They ripped it out and got a local landscaper to create a dam instead with a rocky stream bed leading down to it. After it was all finished with native plants on the "stream bank "it looked superb and looked every inch a natural stream you would see out in the bush. It sounds very similar the what PHL had done. One of the OB's here on the forums has done something similar to a dry creek bed but I can't remember who ??? Stewie Re: Rain Gardens 9Dec 07, 2014 9:08 pm Thats the one ! Thanks Lorri. Do you have a link to her thread ? Not her newer rental one, the other house she built . Edit : Found it. viewtopic.php?f=19&t=72990&start=40 Stewie Re: Rain Gardens 10Dec 08, 2014 1:37 pm I've actually been thinking about how I can make my water storage area a little bit more aesthetic coz my garden doesn't have all that much space. But a storage drum is really quite unsightly to be honest and some of the ideas here for creeks and ponds and dams actually sound really good now! Except for the space issue... Re: Rain Gardens 11Dec 09, 2014 12:16 pm I fell in love with the idea of tankless water retention on site when I came across these....old swimming pools now turned into naturalistic water holes. Looks far better than a swimming pool anyday. A friend of mine also bought a home with a concrete in-ground pool she didn't want. So she built a glass roof over it and has the world's coolest sunken greenhouse.
You could basically water the garden straight out of these pools being as they are 100% chlorine free. They still need a pump but its for oxygenation only. They rely on the plantings to create an eco-system that keeps the water clean just like a real pond. I imagine though your home would be a frog haven in short time. Re: Rain Gardens 12Dec 09, 2014 12:21 pm Edward Thirlwall I've actually been thinking about how I can make my water storage area a little bit more aesthetic coz my garden doesn't have all that much space. But a storage drum is really quite unsightly to be honest and some of the ideas here for creeks and ponds and dams actually sound really good now! Except for the space issue... Have you heard about wicking beds? This is where you build (easy to do) a small retention tank under a garden bed that sits there and continues to water the garden. The idea is you dig a shallow depression or you can make them in a container, line the bottom, lay down gravel to keep the soil and roots out of the standing water. Then layer soil on top. You have a pipe that sticks up above soil level to enable you to then pour water directly into this storage area so it won't evaporate and only gets used by the plants as needed. It's very much like a swale that you just plant directly into. You can also DIY some overflow pipes from your wicking beds so your plants won't drown if you get a heavy rainfall. I did create a little water feature in my last garden out of an old tin laundry tub. Just put a few inches of soil in the bottom, topped up with water and planted water chestnuts in it, and threw some duckweed and frogbit on top. Very pretty and very easy to do. The best part? The tree frogs which had been living in the toilet moved out and into the tub The water chestnuts grow like crazy and are easy to harvest. Nice bit of extra food on the table out of a 1m wide tub. I personally want to store the garden water inground rather than in tanks as well. In practice it will probably be a combination of all techniques for best effect. Re: Rain Gardens 13Dec 09, 2014 1:34 pm You can bury the bulk of any sort of tank underground without too much difficulty - concrete fibreglass, plastic etc but where this becomes a problem is a) the cost to dig the hole and installing the tank underground b) drainage from the tank. If you want to bury it completely then a concrete tank with 300-500mm soil above so you can grow turf or a garden on top of it is probably the only kind that will support this weight. Then of course you need a pump to extract the water. Quote: The best part? The tree frogs which had been living in the toilet moved out and into the tub Anytime you create a pond or a wet garden it is surprising how quickly frogs will colonise it and it doesn't seem to matter where you are either. Even the drier states seem to have this happen as well. Stewie Hi, does anyone have any experience with using Trex rain escape or EPDM rubber to waterproof a deck so you have dry space underneath. Popular in the US and realize that… 0 3447 Yes you are correct, unless there are outside works which form part of the contract such as landscaping or driveways, and importantly, the work delayed is on the critical… 1 3532 Hi When it rains in a particular direction water comes through the security door. It hits the main door and the bottom swells and jams. There is already a cover over the… 0 38448 |