Seven Years Later ~ A Rain Garden Reflection

Seven Years Later ~ A Rain Garden Reflection

by Sue Ellingson, 2008
www.sueellingson.com/raingardens

I dug my rain garden seven years ago. I wish I’d had more advice at the time. These plants are fighters and once they’ve settled in, evicting them is like going to war.

My garden was mostly shady at first. Then a big old hackberry cracked and the city cut it down. And the sun shone on plants that really weren’t so thrilled about it. It still isn’t sunny sunny, more like partly sunny.

Anyway, here we go: Sue’s rain garden thoughts seven years later.

AVOID TOO-TALL PLANTS
In 2001, I planted Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium maculatum). In fact, it’s a lovely plant. Pinkish flowers work up to blooming in August and draw tiger swallowtails. I’ve put up with it far longer than I otherwise would have because the tiger swallowtails draw me.

But last summer one stalk topped out at nine feet. Nine feet! This from a plant that seldom reaches more than five feet. A nine foot plant is terrific for a public park, but entirely too much for my little urban lot. (I think a shorter variety may now be available.)

And frankly, it’s only nine feet high when it’s standing up. Too many summers have passed with the plant sprawled across the garden after a storm knocked it flat.

Brown-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia triloba) and meadow rue (Thalictrum dasycarpum) are also good-but-too-tall plants that I wish I’d avoided.

THINK OF IT AS A MEADOW
It’s good to have a lot of grass or sedge in a rain garden. It competes with the too-tall plants and keeps them in check. And it puts down lots of roots, all over, improving infiltration. There were two obstacles to my rain garden having a lot of grass.

The first was the “garden” vision in my head. Flowers, flowers, flowers. No grass in the picture. So I chose a lot of flowering plants and very few grasses. Now it’s too late. The forbs dominate the garden. Grasses and sedges added afterward have never gotten big enough to reach above the forbs’ leaves. I wish I had opened my mind to a little urban meadow.

The second problem was the lack of sun. Grass likes sun and is never happy without it. When you see a picture of a savannah-a sea of grass with a few scattered trees-there are always more forbs and less grass in the shade of the trees. So I never would have had a lot of grass or sedge, but I could have done better than almost none.

MORE THOUGHTS
• Some plants are just too small or unassertive to have much of an impact on the garden, even though they’re lovely. Liatris, prairie onion, and bottlebrush grass, for example.

• In a wild garden, plants come, and go, and come again. Relax and let it happen. I used to worry that the hundreds of lavender hyssop seedlings would take over. One year I took a chance-and didn’t dig them up. They were fine.

• Plants crowd the sidewalk in summer. I trim them with hedge trimmers. One year I made a small fence with bamboo lashed together. It worked well, too, to keep the walk clear.

• People often ask about downspouts that empty onto a driveway. A rain barrel can serve well. (So I’ve been told; I don’t have gutters or a rain barrel.) www.rainfordane.org

• I don’t ever burn my garden, I cut it cut down. So tree seedlings always need pulling. Creeping bellflower has also crept in and I worry about this terrible plant taking over. (Although the problematic Joe Pye weed completely dominates it.)

• I wonder whether a rain garden of shrubs would be effective. I don’t know the answer to this.

• I really enjoy having goldfinches picking seeds off the seed heads in the fall. The garden has had a toad, hawk moths, hummingbirds, a monarch caterpillar, and many more creatures.

A NATIVE GARDEN RIGHT OUTSIDE YOUR DOOR
Sarah Stein, the author of Noah’s Garden, suggested that everyone should have a bit of native garden right next to their door. Native plants co-evolved with native creatures and they depend on one another for survival. When you pass a native garden every day, you’ll see how other creatures in this ecosystem benefit from even a small oasis of native plants. And the idea of native landscaping will sell itself.

Don’t miss it, folks. It’s a fabulous experience.

RESULTS FOR PLANTS IN AND AROUND MY RAIN GARDEN

Grasses
Bromus ciliatus - fringed brome grass - Lovely, drooping seed heads.
Elymus hystrix - bottlebrush grass - Attractive seed heads, but a small, unassertive plant.

Forbs
Agastache foeniculum - lavender hyssop - I like this plant, though the blossoms are nothing. Barely any lavender. But they’re a perfect size and goldfinches love them.
Allium cernuum - prairie onion - Small, but lovely blossoms.
Anemone canadensis - Canada anemone - A favorite. It has a reputation for being aggressive, but I’ve never had trouble with it.
Asclepias incarnata - milkweed - Milkweed is the only plant that monarchs will lay eggs on. I was happy to see monarch caterpillar this summer.
Aster laevis - smooth aster
Aster lateriflorus - side-flowering aster - A volunteer, but very nice.
Aster novae-angliae - New England aster - Always falls down.
Baptisia australis - blue false indigo - Native to the US south of Wis. Slow growing. A terrific plant.
Eupatorium maculatum - Joe Pye weed - Too tall.
Liatris spicata - liatris - Small. Pretty.
Monarda fistuosa - bee balm - Very nice plant, but always gets powdery mildew.
Oxalis stricta - comon yellow oxalis - Volunteer. Grows everywhere but isn’t troublesome.
Ratibida pinnata - gray-head coneflower
Rudbeckia hirta (or R. fulgida) - black-eyed Susan - Rudbeckia fulgida is not native to Wis, but is a very nice plant.
Rudbeckia triloba - brown-eyed - Susan Too tall.
Silene stellata - starry campion
Thalictrum dasycarpum - meadow rue - Pretty plant, but too tall.
Tradescantia ohioensis - spiderwort

Spring ephemerals
Aquilegia canadensis - columbine - Often spectacular, but short-lived.
Arisaema triphyllum - Jack-in-the-pulpit
Polemonium reptans - Jacob’s ladder
Dodecatheon meadia - shooting star
Mertensia virginica - Virginia bluebells

Shrubs
Aronia abutifolia - red chokeberry - failed
Cornus alternifolia - pagoda dogwood (small multi-stemmed tree) - Awesome plant! Chipmunks eat the berries.
Corylus americana - American hazelnut - Going like gangbusters.

Failed plants - There are spectacular plants here that failed and I don’t know why.
Actaea rubra - red baneberry
Asarum canadense - wild ginger - A woodland plant that got too much sun.
Cassia hebecarpa - wild senna
Echinacea purpurea - purple coneflower - Killed by a virus common in this species.
Helenium autumnale - sneezeweed
Lobelia cardinalis - cardinal flower - Attracts hummingbirds.
Lythrum alatum - winged loosestrife
Solidago riddellii (I think) - Riddell’s goldenrod
Trillium grandiflorum - trillium - A woodland plant that got too much sun.
Veronicastrum virginicum - Culver’s root - Planted too close to the Joe Pye weed.
Zizea aurea - golden Alexander - Such a nice plant! But I think it needs more wet.
Elymus villosus - silky wild rye grass
Sporabolis heterolepis - prairie dropseed - A terrific plant.
Carex - sedge, 3 varieties - Always shorter than the forbs.