Installation
From Danielle Duhe, Associate at Dana Brown and
Associates: a simple process for
building a no-nonsense, do-it-yourself rain garden on a small urban lot.
Basically:
1.
Dig a trench 18” down. There is no minimum width
or length.
2.
Fill the bottom 12” of the trench with pea
stone.
3.
Place 9” of a very sandy soil mixture on top of
pea stone. Duhe uses a mixture of 90% sand and 10% composted organic matter,
such as pine bark or bagasse. The resulting bed will be 3” above grade, but it
will settle.
4.
Plant with native plants. She especially likes
Louisiana iris, dwarf palmetto and muhly grasses.
5.
Mulch with 3” pine straw.
If you can site the rain garden in a spot that is already
collecting water, that’s clearly best.
Dana Brown and Associates has also just published a book,
Using Plants for Stormwater Management (LSU Press). Here’s the link to LSU’s
site promoting the book. http://lsupress.org/books/detail/using-plants-for-stormwater-management/
No comments:
Post a Comment