WHILE you watched much-needed showers race down the driveway and spill into street drains two weeks ago, did you perhaps think: How can I harness that rainfall? How can I save that water for a yard that has endured drought-like conditions?
It turns out that "harvesting" rainfall is not only good for the garden, but also good for the environment.
And there are several ways you can prepare for the next major storm to keep some of that moisture in your landscape and away from the drainage systems.
Increasingly, homeowners want strategies to capture and retain storm water, whether for irrigating the garden during dry spells or to divert it from gushing down the block.
In response, municipalities such as Santa Monica sponsor grant programs to help residents renovate their properties, and savvy designers offer solutions that are functional and aesthetically pleasing.
Peter Jensen, a landscape designer with Gaudet Design Group of Santa Monica, says rainfall isn't polluted until it hits the streets. "That's when it mixes with brake fluid, motor oil and gas spills that are concentrated on pavement, gets swept into the larger drainage systems and eventually spills into the ocean."
To Jensen, traditional residential landscapes are water wasters. Expansive front lawns require irrigation and boost your water bill. Impermeable driveways shed precipitation into the streets. Downspouts dump water into municipal drainage systems. This waste adds up to thousands of gallons of water that otherwise could remain within the homeowner's own landscape.
Jensen recently helped John Francis and Susanne Meline capture rainwater in their Santa Monica yard. With the added incentive of a city grant covering half of the project's $5,000 price tag, the couple worked with Jensen to design a custom water-management system that holds as many as 450 gallons of rainwater. "Depending on the rate that rainwater seeps into the ground, the pit can accommodate more water over an extended time," Jensen says.
To determine the ideal size and volume of the infiltration pit, Jensen calculated the potential rainfall that his clients' roof would shed into the yard. The pit, about 200 cubic feet, is a straight-sided hole in the ground, lined with landscaping cloth and filled with variously sized rocks. It is topped off with larger rocks to emulate a dry creek. The system allows water to seep slowly into the ground rather than mixing with pollutants on the city streets. Some designs also have outlets to handle overflow during extreme storms.
