Rain Garden Facts and Fiction: Your Rain Garden May Work Perfectly, or it May Need Adjusting

Installing a rain garden incorporates both science and art. Your rain garden may or may not work perfectly right after installation is completed. Fret not; it's often part of the process to make adjustments over time as needed, based on your site conditions.

For example, if you are mitigating a large area of impervious surface runoff with a rain garden, it may be helpful to channel the water so that it travels across a stone bed—which may need adjusting—before it reaches the plants. The stone bed can help slow the water so that it doesn't wash away the first plants as it reaches the garden. Also, if your rain garden receives too much runoff, you may need to channel excess runoff to additional planting beds.

Part of the joy of gardening is working in harmony with nature and fine-tuning over time. Learn to appreciate nature and tolerate some imperfection in the garden. The experienced gardener welcomes in their garden not only the laws of nature, but the play of contingency, too. The experienced gardener accepts that a garden is never truly finished; that though they may tame nature for a time, their mastery is temporary at best.

As Roger B. Swain tells us, "Nature writes, gardeners edit." And H. E. Bates reminds us, "A garden should be in a constant state of fluid change, expansion, experiment, adventure; above all it should be an inquisitive, loving, but self-critical journey on the part of its owner." Among other things, a garden is a form of self-expression that can give body to our wishes. Trial and error gardening will answer many garden questions. In the garden, the voice of experience—distilled, collective, and well worn—speaks volumes. An open, flexible approach to gardening makes it a much more enjoyable experience—one that can also help keep you mentally and physically flexible and in shape. Study and imitate nature's ways and means. Enjoy your newly created rain garden filled with the sights and sounds of birds and butterflies attracted to your native plants.

Don't stress too much over it. The rain garden does not have to be perfect to do its job, and it will change over time-that's one of the things that makes it so rewarding: it's a living, dynamic system. Dig a hole, relax, and let nature take its course. Observe and have fun. —Spencer Rowe, Wetland Scientist