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We bought our first house in Perth, and quickly learned that most of our gutter downpipes emptied water directly onto the soil, without any consideration of where that water would go. Draining rainwater directly next to a house is a big no-no, because it undermines the foundation, attracts termites, and erodes the soil. I’d already installed soak wells for other parts of the house, but one particular downpipe near the front of the house offered a unique opportunity.
RAINSCAPING! Stormwater management is a crucial aspect of home maintenance, but soak-wells aren’t your only option! Rainscaping is just landscaping without forgetting that it rains sometimes. Instead of “disposing” of the water from that downpipe, I wanted to exploit it as a garden feature.
Here were my objectives for the project:
- Erosion control: Our house is built on an elevated block with a retaining wall. That wall stops short of our front garden, so rainwater from that downpipe had caused significant erosion to the garden slope (and damaged our driveway!). I wanted to prevent it from getting worse by controlling where the water goes.
- Water retention: Here in Perth, we get bursts of major rain followed by prolonged dry periods. Perth soils are also notoriously sandy, so the water can sometimes disappear into the water table before my plants have had a chance to drink. Plant roots are the only thing holding our sloped garden together, so I want to give those plants more time to drink after it rains.
- Supporting local flora and fauna: It’s always good to see a bit of biodiversity, and it never hurts to create a unique habitat zone in your garden.
This project uses three rainscaping ideas.
- Rain Garden: Just like a normal garden, but it’s allowed to flood! Rain gardens are like surface soak-wells. Water goes in, then permeates into the surface underneath… but as I said before though, water drains into perth soil too quickly… which is where the next trick comes in.
- Rainfall buffer: (WARNING: Only use this trick if your soil drains TOO quickly!). After digging the hole, I realized that our raingarden would only retain water for a few seconds. Far too fast for our trees to get a drink. To slow down the drainage rate, I used a spread layer of bentonite clay; a thick layer would be enough to build a pond, but a thin layer is just enough to slow that water down.
- Dry Creek-bed: I had some left-over draincoil tubing from other work I’d done, but it wasn’t long enough to get to where I needed to go. A “swale” (drainage trench) is easy enough to dig, but why not make it attractive! For this project, we filled the swale with rocks and river pebbles to create a “dry creek bed”.
Materials
For the downpipe fitting:
Holman 100 x 50 x 90mm PVC Stormwater Downpipe Adaptor
Holman 90mm 45° M-F PVC Stormwater Elbow
https://www.bunnings.com.au/holman-90mm-45-m-f-pvc-stormwater-elbow_p4770313
Holman 90 x 75 x 65 x 50 x 40mm Storm PVC Stepped Adaptor
https://www.bunnings.com.au/holman-90-x-75-x-65-x-50-x-40mm-storm-pvc-stepped-adaptor_p4760090
Holman 90mm x 3m PVC Stormwater Pipe
https://www.bunnings.com.au/holman-90mm-x-3m-pvc-stormwater-pipe_p4770094
Vinidex 65mm Draincoil Coupling
https://www.bunnings.com.au/vinidex-65mm-draincoil-coupling_p4770397
Vinidex 65mm x 20m Unslotted Black Draincoil
https://www.bunnings.com.au/vinidex-65mm-x-20m-unslotted-black-draincoil_p4770257
For actual pit:
Pillar 1.8 x 10m Grey Geotextile Drainage Membrane Mat
https://www.bunnings.com.au/pillar-1-8-x-10m-grey-geotextile-drainage-membrane-mat_p0126613
Jack 200 x 90 x 4mm Heavy Duty Weedmat Pins - 20 Pack
https://www.bunnings.com.au/jack-200-x-90-x-4mm-heavy-duty-weedmat-pins-20-pack_p0478372
Sourced our own Bentonite Clay, but this should work too:
Richgro 15kg Natural Sand To Soil Soil Improver
https://www.bunnings.com.au/richgro-15kg-natural-sand-to-soil-soil-improver_p3010180
10x Westbuild 20kg Metal 14mm Stone
https://www.bunnings.com.au/westbuild-20kg-metal-14mm-stone_p0760084
5x Ki Carma 20kg River Pebble Landscape Stones
https://www.bunnings.com.au/ki-carma-20kg-river-pebble-landscape-stones_p0129330
2x Tuscan Path 30-50mm 20kg Black Decorative Pebble Mix
https://www.bunnings.com.au/tuscan-path-30-50mm-20kg-black-decorative-pebble-mix_p3460141
Tools
Shovel & hose
Steps
Step 1
Picking the site for this rainscaping project was easy, because the water had already eroded a path to it (and revealed my retic!).
Step 2
First, I dug a hole where I wanted the rain garden to be, while ensuring some of the soil got piled along the edges for support. I dug a shallow swale toward the downpipe, and continued to diging to make a trench up to the downpipe. After fitting my draincoil tube to the downpipe, I put a bit of gravel around the base to prevent erosion in the unlikely event of blow-back if the raingarden gets full.
Step 3
To slow down the final drainage rate, I sprinkled about 10kg of bentonite clay around the freshly dug hole. You can easily tell how quickly the final setup will drain just by using a hose. Water it down a little. Again, don't do this step if you live somewhere with poorly draining soils.
Step 4
Once i was happy with the drainage rate, i lined it with geocloth.
Step 5
Now it was time to start filling everything in.
For the raingarden (on downhill end), I poured in some local soil for planting, and mixed in heaps of compost for water retention.
For the dry creek-bed (the uphill swale), I poured in heaps of blue metal gravel, which is great for drainage.
Step 6
All that was left was to make it look pretty! I added a bunch of decorative river gravel and pebbles to give it a more natural look (The larger rocks were locally sourced from our garden). Stuck a few damp & drought tolerant plants in the rain garden, and there you have it!
Hello @DirtMonkey
Welcome to the Bunnings workshop community. It's wonderful to have you join us, and thanks for sharing your rain scaping project.
What an amazing and creative way to guide rainwater safely out of your property. It certainly beats traditional plastic drainage or concrete channels. One of the best parts of your creation is that it becomes a stone sculpture when its dry and a mesmerizing drain channel when it rains. Plus, it prevents soil from getting washed away.
Again, thank you for sharing such a wonderful project.
Eric
Good Evening @DirtMonkey
Wooooo You know when you come across gold? 
I love your idea of the rainscaping! I have something similar but its still a work in progress. Mine works but I actually want it to carry a fake stream normally with the ability to carry and shed those stormwater instances you are talking about Lots of fun digging and forming ahead for me.
How is it working? I know you only posted in Nov, somehow I missed it 
Our rainy season (East Coast, South of Sydney) hits about now until end of Feb for downpours. I prob wont get the next stage done before then but shall see. Are you doing other landscaping to your yard?
Dave
Thanks for the kind words Dave!
Yeah, we're doing all our own landscaping bit by bit. The rain garden was just one of those "bits" i guess.
We've only had one substantial rain since i built the rain garden, and it works well... a little TOO well! The water is draining too fast for me to see the flowing water (but i can HEAR it, which is nice). The raingarden stays damp for ages though, which was one of my core objectives! When winter comes, i'll sprinkle more bentonite clay into the top of the creek bed to tweak the water infiltration rates.
Your own project sounds like an interesting one! Just a heads up about the clay sealant idea; it probably wouldn't hold up against constant 24/7 waterflow. It can handle intermittent or standing water, but constant flow will erode it and make your water cloudy. Plastic liner would let you do the constant flow though, and use overflows to deal with stormwater... but then the creek will always at the level of the overflow. hmmm.
Heres an idea. If you wanted the creek to look more "real", you could use semi permeable overflows for the entire length of the creek. i.e. Use plastic liner to define the "normal water level", high-clay soil or perforated plastic to define the "stormwater level", then high drainage substrate to define "overflow level". If it buckets down, the water in your creek would rise to stormwater level but no higher. The rest of the time it would be at normal level.
Ive drawn a dodgy picture of the idea in cross section; black is the plastic liner, yellow is the semipermeable substrate... a bit like what ive used to line my entire creek bed.
No matter what you end up doing, it will probably need experimentation and i'd be keen to see pics!
Evening @DirtMonkey
yep you have nailed pretty much what I was thinking. Where I live we have high clay content soil as well as a lot of hollow areas under the yard (pretty sure from "fill" from the yard way back when the house was built) Love that you have been out to "hear" the garden working lol I have been out snapping photos in the rain The things we do!
Will definently be posting a project for the next stage of the water retention Why let something go to waste when we can use it
Love that pic btw
Dave
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