Natives and Non-Natives Play Nicely Together
1,000-Gallon Rainwater Harvesting System | Keeping Thousands of Gallons of Runoff Out of the Kalamazoo River Per Rainfall
When the Saugatuck Center for the Arts brought us on board to redo their rain garden and surrounding grounds, we were thrilled. This amazing site not only offers plenty of room to design dream landscapes, it can really use the stormwater assistance – producing literally thousands of gallons of runoff per rainfall before we came in.
The soil beneath the garden is rich on top and sandy beneath, helping to recharge the aquifer, but we knew we had to take creative measures to deal with all that stormwater. We redesigned the raingarden, which was in its previous incarnation was quite unsightly, helping to demonstrate that “green” can be both environmentally friendly and beautiful.
To that end, we set up both above- and belowground rainwater harvesting systems. We leveraged a thousand-gallon underground tank to feed irrigation and supplement water as needed, then designed a free-flowing landscape that mixed formal and informal elements, natives and non-natives. The result is a beautiful synergy of which we and the Saugatuck Center for the Arts are both very proud.
If you'd like to design your own stormwater-saving, beautiful space, please get in touch.