The Do-It-Yourself Rain Garden

[elleng]

'So you spent the holiday weekend indoors, watching rainwater pool in your yard — or worse still, in the basement? Here’s how to fix that.

When it rains all weekend and you’re stuck at home, you have time to notice a lot of things. Like that one spot where water runs off the roof a bit too fast, some of it disobediently making its way into the basement. Or maybe you watched as rainwater rushed down the driveway, straight into a storm drain, or into a depression in the lawn where it always seems to pool after a downpour.

A scaled-down version of the storm-water management tactics used in municipal planning can help solve those problems, slowing water flow and increasing infiltration. And if the solution is landscape-focused and involves planting native species, it will also support pollinators and other beneficial insects, promoting overall diversity.

Think of it as a do-it-yourself rain garden to the rescue — and then some.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/02/realestate/do-it-yourself-rain-garden.html?

[Ocelot II]

1. Just made one.

My house faces south on a street that slopes gently west to east, and when it rains (which it has not done lately, unfortunately), the water runs down the sidewalk and/or into the street. So I made a little rain garden on the boulevard strip between the street and the sidewalk - being too old and lazy to to do it myself, I hired a guy to dig out the soil down to about 7" below the level of the sidewalk, then add a couple of inches of new topsoil. It gets a fair amount of sun so I planted catmint, monarda, sedum, milkweed, solidago and a few other native, pollinator-friendly plants that can tolerate both drought and short periods of wet feet. It looks great, but now I'm waiting for some rain - last summer it rained constantly; this summer hardly at all.

[msongs]

2. subscription required at link nt

[wackadoo wabbit]

3. There's a way around that

I've posted this before, but it bears repeating, especially since it'll also help make your computer more secure.

Here's how you get around most (if not virtually all?) paywalls, etc.:

Use Firefox as your browser, then add the NoScript extension.

NoScript blocks java script from running on your computer, and you'll be astounded at the number of scripts some sites want to run when you go to their pages! Honestly, some want to have upwards of 30+ scripts running — and most of those scripts are just tracking, etc. They're not actually necessary for the page to load successfully.

Anyway, that NYT page, for example, is not viewable when the scripts are loaded. However, if you're running NoScript and block all scripts, that page is perfectly viewable. (You won't get most of the photos except for the top one, but you'll get all the text.)

Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions about this. I find NoScript to be so indispensable that the first thing I did when I got my new computer was install Firefox, then install NoScript. I feel naked and exposed browsing without it.

[msongs]

4. thx the tip. used to run no script but got a new computer and did not add that since nt