Designed and installed in 2015, this was our firm’s first dry creek and rain garden located adjacent to a wetland. We were commissioned by the clients to find a sustainable function to a traditional lawn that flooded during the rainy seasons and was therefore non-navigable and unusable.
The clients were already avid outdoors enthusiasts and gardeners of both traditional plantings and edible species. Here, they wanted to add native plants to provide habitat and a food source for birds and pollinators while handling their yard’s fluctuating water conditions. In addition, they wanted to further embrace their tranquil setting near this wetland. To do this, we incorporated walking paths, sitting spots, and special features like bridges to their new rain garden and dry creek.
In our first phase of the project, we reclaimed the lawn. We created a beautiful buffer zone between the lawn and wetland by re-grading the area into beds for the dry creek and rain garden. The dry creek collects and directs water that would’ve otherwise pooled in the lawn into the rain garden filled with native plants suitable to the wetter environment. These plants also filter the rain water and prevent unfiltered runoff from entering the wetland.
A season later, we redesigned the other half of their yard where a sports court once sat. Similar water issues were present, so we employed similar solutions and plantings to connect the two spaces seamlessly.
