Guides, Stories & Resources

An introduction to rain garden

This weedy lawn had been bothering the homeowners for a long time. It was a nice lawn when it was first put in, but needed to be maintained often. As busy professionals, they really did not have the time. On the other hand, they wanted to be friendly for the environment and have a small footprint. The lawn, they felt, used too much water.

This story is about an amazing transformation from barren to beauty. When the owners moved into the house, the first thing they wanted to change was the front and back yards. It was barren, utterly unattractive. The main part of the front yard was this hard surface covered with sand. It had been used as a parking space for years.

After a long dry winter rains finally came! For three days the rains just came down heavily. This garden was completed right before the rains. During the rain, raindrops can be seen coming down from the two down spouts, going right into the the soil of the garden. The plants waved gently in the rain, as if saying: “Thank you!”

In Santa Clara county where the Silicon Valley is located, Los Gatos Creek is one of the few urban streams that remains relatively intact throughout countless developments in the area during the last 200 years. The stream originates in the Santa Cruz Mountains, flows into the Vasona Reservoir, winds through a small valley, and clears into the Guadalupe river that finally empties into the San Francisco Bay. It is one of the many steams and creeks in the vast Guadalupe River watershed, and a habitat for many wetland species.

We all know how important water is to us – drinking, washing, cooking, showering, watering – all part of the things we do with it every day. Water, and clean drinking water, is essential to all of us. For most of us, when we turn on the tap, water will flow – it comes so natural that we rarely think about where the water comes from, and how they came here. To have access to clean drinking water is central part of human activities since the ancient time.

When it rains and all the raindrops fall on our roofs, have you thought about where the stormwater go to? Well, most of it just goes down the sewer, into the creeks and rivers, and eventually out to the ocean.