Rain Garden App
Create a rain garden using this multi-state mobile app.
The free Rain Garden app is designed to guide homeowners, landscapers, contractors and others through properly designing and maintaining a rain garden.
The Rain Garden app features video tutorials, diagrams, text and other tools that help users site, size, design, install and maintain their garden. It also includes tools to measure and size the garden, estimate costs and manage multiple rain garden projects.
Learn more about the development of the app in the rain garden app flyer.
In addition to the numerous nationwide tools, the app features:
- Georgia plant selector tool with a Georgia rain garden native plant database developed by the UGA EcoScapes Program to select regionally appropriate native plants suited to the user’s location;
- Georgia soil drainage maps to determine if a rain garden’s placement is appropriate based on soil type;
- Google Maps-based sizing tool to measure and determine rain garden size based on the size of the area draining to the location;
- Georgia “Call Before You Dig” contact; and
- Integration of Georgia stormwater standards to determine the appropriate size of the rain garden.
Why are rain gardens important?
In a forest or meadow, rain is slowly absorbed into the soil, filtered by natural processes and eventually fed into streams, wetlands, rivers, underground aquifers and coastal waters.
Over time, people have replaced Georgia’s natural landscape with hard impervious surfaces such as sidewalks and parking lots. When rain hits these surfaces, it quickly runs off directly into storm drains, ditches or waterways, all without being absorbed and filtered by our natural landscapes.
As the rainwater flows over these surfaces, it collects loose soil, fertilizers, pesticides, motor oil, pet waste and trash. These pollutants eventually run into storm drains, which empty into the nearest stream or water body, causing water pollution.
What are the benefits?
Rain gardens provide many benefits, including:
- Reducing the amount of pollutants that wash into streams, rivers, lakes, marshes and wetlands;
- Increasing the amount of water that filters into the ground on site, which recharges local and regional aquifers;
- Helping to sustain adequate stream flow during dry spells through infiltration and recharge;
- Helping to protect communities by reducing stormwater runoff and potential water quality problems and the likelihood of flooding;
- Enhancing the beauty of yards, neighborhoods, urban areas and communities;
- Reducing the need for costly municipal stormwater treatment structures;
- Providing valuable habitat for wildlife; and,
- Requiring less maintenance than lawns because they do not need to be mowed, fertilized or watered, once established.