I am a lazy gardener. Watering my landscape has little appeal; I would rather harvest, eat, and relax.

Through the Master Conservationist program, Rainscaping classes, and numerous Backyard Abundance design consultations, I learned that most human-created landscapes have water problems, especially in urban homes and yards. Our culture’s primary design goal is to get water off our landscape as quickly as possible even if it means dumping it into a nearby stream or neighboring yard. This realization caused me to think hard about my ethical responsibility to manage rain water on my property so it does not negatively impact others downstream.

The rain water on the landscape of my newly-built home was running off in sheets, eroding valuable topsoil, and pooling in undesirable places. How could I take this awesome form of energy and transform it from a negative force into one that makes less work for me?

Permaculture training helped me understand how healthy ecosystems stay vibrant during terrible droughts through a simple approach: They make running water walk and walking water stand still. Water is captured and disbursed in a variety of ways: winding streams and rivers, lakes and pools, plants and soil. Emulating these patterns in my landscape means that it will be self-watering and will help silence my neighbors’ energy-sucking sump pumps.

Little known fact: Turfgrass does little to stop runoff. After its shallow root area quickly saturates it is no better than pavement at holding water. The next time you see water cascading down a parking lot or street, it is informative to understand that the exact same flow is happening on most swaths of turfgrass.

The most cost-effective and efficient place to store water is in the soil. Rain gardens and infiltration swales are foundational features for capturing and infiltrating rain water. An infiltration swale is just a long rain garden that follows the contour of a landscape. More information about designing and implementing rain gardens can be found on the Backyard Abundance website.

I carved out two swales on the south side of my house where most of my fruit-bearing trees and shrubs will be located. These will infiltrate half the water from my roof and any water that sheets off the driveway and no-mow turfgrass in the front yard. Nearby plants will be watered and the health of the soil will be increased through this simple feature. It is great knowing that I will not need to use expensive, energy-intensive water dredged up from our depleting aquifers.

Yes, a squat berm running across much of my yard looks unconventional even though it will be somewhat hidden by no-mow turf and ground covers. I once thought that we could solve our environmental problems simply by replacing nasty practices with eco-friendly ones all the while maintaining existing appearances. This expectation changed once I learned that the root cause of our environmental crises is our lack of ecosystem mimicry in our built environment and, more importantly, in our mindsets. As I have become more ecologically-literate, the dysfunction of most landscapes has caused me to see them in a much different light. This backyard learning has helped me see how larger environmental problems can be solved; for example, finding solutions to large-scale flooding and drought.

During a recent rainstorm, it was a pleasure watching water be retained and infiltrated when it had previously run into my neighbor's yard. I will soon plant cover crops and no-mow grass to stabilize the bare soil. A rain garden is also in the works to capture the other half of my roof water. My annual veggie garden will be watered using water captured in a rain barrel.

Learn more about constructing swales.