Create a raingarden

Create a dry riverbed

A soak-away area (sometimes called a swale) can direct water away from your house, and contain it safely. It can also create a strong visual feature in your garden.

You could build a pond, a bog garden, or a mini wetland.

Another option is to create a winding riverbed that is wet in the winter and dry in summer. (It does not need to be as wide as a real river!). The shape should be deeper in the middle than at the sides. Creating shallow banks and pebbly beaches along it can look attractive and provide habitat for wildlife.

You could plant the sides with short-lived colourful annuals in summer. The banks can host sturdy permanent shrubs or flamboyant grasses.

What is rain gardening?

The way that you design and plant your garden can affect its ability to catch and contain rainfall.

Plants and green spaces act like sponges, holding back water. Rainfall is then released more slowly into rivers, or evaporates back into the sky. This slows the flow, and can help to prevent flooding.

Rain gardening also encourages wildlife, and looks after the environment

Which plants should I choose for rain gardening?

Plants can help to contain the rain in two main ways.

First, they trap rainfall in their physical structure. This reduces the amount of water that rushes towards drains and local rivers at any time.

The best plants for slowing the flow in this way have a complicated form with lots of fine leaves, such as conifers, grasses, and ferns.

Second, plants dry out wet soil and make your garden less soggy. They do this by soaking up water and allowing it to evaporate from their leaves back to the atmosphere. The best plants for this are those that grow rapidly or have large leaves.

But whatever type of plants you like, adding more of them to your garden and avoiding lots of hard landscaping will help slow the flow of water, prevent waterlogging, and support local wildlife.

Want to give rain gardening a try?

This video offers some useful tips!

Bob Bray, Dusty Gedge, Gary Grant & Lani Leuthvilay have written a detailed and useful guide to rain gardening, with a plant list.

Urban Design London have also produced a practical booklet of rain gardening advice.