The Stormwater Chain and the Rain Garden
Written: Aug 09 '07 (Updated Aug 09 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Written for non-professionals, encouraging, easy to understand, excellent background instructions
Cons: Lacks detailed designs
The Bottom Line: Rain garden design becomes realistically understandable thanks to the practical and easy to understand introduction.
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| pestyside's Full Review: Nigel Dunnett and Andy Clayden - Rain Gardens: Man... |
Too often we moan because man-made problems and their effects on our world overwhelm us. I do. The feeling of helplessness in the face of such a massive problem seems daunting and in my case it sometimes paralyzes me into inaction. Water is a big issue and these authors propose a simple process where small-scale efforts can make a significant difference and have real impact. They’re talking about using water to protect water or creating rain gardens.
No, this is not a garden planted in a desert that will grow rain. (A child once asked me that.)
“Our aim in writing this book is to look into and explain how simple techniques can make a real difference to the way that water is managed in designed landscapes…We will highlight some of the best of these schemes and indicate how they can be modified or adapted to suit different scales of application.”
Two landscape architects, Nigel Dunnett and Andy Clayden, combine there knowledge to write, Rain Gardens: Managing water sustainably in the garden and designed landscape. These authors took on the challenge of compiling a book that blends together many of the current emerging ideas from the rapidly growing field of rain gardens. This field is exploding with ideas and new efforts.
Rain garden concepts excite urban planners and city gardeners everywhere. It has moved beyond being a fad and is embraced as a practical process for addressing urban runoff and water pollution. They illustrate their thoughts with examples from around the world (and through history). They also illustrate their book with photographs of many examples and diagrams of designs.
How do we manage water through rain garden construction?
We can count the ways either as three or 15. The book is divided into three sections; Rain Gardens, The Stormwater chain, and Plant directory. Polluted water becomes a serious problem during stormwater runoff events so the question is how to treat the water at the source. Realistically pollution prevention means preventing the pollutants from occurring. In the ideal world that could happen, but the cynical me says in the real world that will never happen. The next step is to figure out how to treat it before it gets into the water cycle, or the stormwater chain.
The authors logically introduce us to the process by walking us through this, step-by-step, not so much in how-to designs, but in the basics behind the designs.
Section 1: Rain gardens
• Introduction
• Water and sustainable landscapes
• Water in a changing climate
• Bioretention
• The stormwater chain
Dunnett and Clayden use a layman’s approach to explain water processes in urban environments and water cycles. They employ case studies to show what has been done. One example, the Peace Gardens, Sheffield, UK, describes a set of narrow flowing channels and dramatic fountains that not only use stormwater but also demonstrate these are good for play. They describe the benefits of bioretention, “a land-based practice that uses the chemical, biological and physical properties of plants, microbes and soils to control both the physical quality of water and the quantity of water with a landscape.”
This essentially is described as an approach to minimize the percent of impervious surface area and to use the landscape and soils to move, store, filter, and manage the movement of water in large storms.
Section 2: The Stormwater Chain
• General design principles for bioretention facilities
• Green roofs
• Capturing water run-off: disconnecting downpipes
• Designing your rain garden
• Site Survey
• Setting out a design
Through most of the book and most of this section discussion has focused on the components and case studies but not on the practical applications. It is in this section, however, that they begin the design process by helping you assess your site, determining where to place rainwater catchments and where to install drainage. I must advise that if your hope is to find a plan for a design for your specific yard, this doesn’t offer something quite so concrete. Instead, we have been introduced to the process, the philosophy, and hopefully the skill to design our own rain garden.
Plant Directory
• Herbaceous plant
• Grasses
• Shrubs
• Trees
• References and Index
Less than ten pages are dedicated to plants. Using a table format recommended plants are listed by botanical name, common name, origin, height, color, bloom time, soil type (wet, moist, mesic, dry) and light preferences. They advise that ”typical rain garden plants will therefore have an intermediate strategy—usually being found in situations around water bodies or in areas of moist soil, or from habitats that are subjected to, and soak up, significant amounts of rainfall during part of the year.” In other words, the plant needs to be prepared to be really wet for a while and quite dry for a while. That’s asking for special plants and they have identified a few plants that fit this requirement.
Rain Gardens is less than 185 pages and is filled with pictures, diagrams, and tables. It’s easy to read and offers a simple, straightforward approach for creating small or large rain gardens. The table of contents and index are both well structured.
My thoughts
Over the past few years I have enjoyed having opportunities to work with a number of people who were developing rain gardens. These are somewhat easier projects for individuals to manage and far less complicated than creating green roofs and roof gardens. The engineering is much less complex. I wish that this book had been available while working on a few school projects. The content is simple, it removes the sense of intimidation, and is straightforward enough for a non-landscaper to understand. While this doesn’t provide exact plans, it does prepare individuals to take on the task of creating a rain garden. Schools embracing this effort, business owners, urban planners and individual homeowners gain a sense of accomplishment and contribution to global environmental health when they see their rain gardens at work. I recommend this for anyone interested in this process as an individual step toward helping address the big issue of water, our most valuable resource. From a practical perspective, it will help keep your local water cleaner and that’s good for your tax bite and local economy and the garden might actually help with resale of your house. These are all reasons to consider this for your next landscaping project.
Recommended:
Yes
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