Building our first rain garden to manage sidewalk runoff

This rain garden was sized with not only the sidewalk at the Mission Zero house in mind, but also the area of paved surfaces uphill contributing to runoff at this location. The city storm sewer (pictured) is exhibiting considerable erosion although most of the runoff currently continues to the floodplain further downhill (in which numerous homes are situated). This rain garden will capture and allow infiltration of the runoff while providing a habitat to native plants and those that live off of them. We had a great Sunday building this rain garden with Drew Lathin of http://creatingsustainablelandscapes.com.