Maintenance sheet for your Rain Garden

Once your garden is finished, make sure it fulfills the purpose for which it was created. If there are any deficiencies observed, make the necessary corrections so that your garden regains its full potential.

Here are some questions to asks yourself:

1- Does the drained surface go towards the garden?

2- If there is too much water in the garden, is the extra quantity properly drained by the overflow?

3- Does the infiltration trench (stones) work properly as a “wave breaker" by preventing water from bringing sediment into the garden?

4- Does the water infiltrate within the desired timeframe (24 to 48 hours)?

Monthly maintenance

Monthly maintenance

1- As months go by, with snowfall and heavy rain, your soil may eventually become compacted. If this happens, simply rework the top layer of the soil.

This will reoptinize the absorption of water into the garden soil;

2. Check the amount of humidity at the bottom of your garden during prolonged dry periods, since plants in Zone 1 require moist soil to grow well. If the soil is dry and there’s no rainfall announced for teh next few days, water it to make sure you don’t lose your plants because of this extended dry spell;

3. Watch out for erosion. If there are areas that are left without much or il gullies form, replace the damaged material and plant specifically in these areas to strengthen the zone;

4. Keep monitoring the plants in your garden, checking that they’re in good condition and replacing the dead ones. It there are unwanted weeds, remove them;

5. Manually remove unwanted debris that may be accumulating in your garden (plastic, waste, tree branches, sediment, etc.).

Yearly maintenance

Replace the mulch that has decomposed over the previous year by prioritizing environmentally friendly mulches, such as fragmented real wood, which will nourish your soil without acidifying it.