Rain garden v. 2.0

From J:

Some time ago, we redid the drainage situation in our yard and added a rain garden to hold water and keep it from ponding in other areas of the yard. The backyard magnolias have turned out great. Everything in the rain garden died (with the exception of a sickly hydrangea and a lone clethra). Wet feet + full sun = plant torture chamber. RIP.

So, we finally decided to try again and replant. This time, we selected different, hopefully hardier, plants and planted them much higher in the ground to keep them out of the water as much as possible. Our choices:

• 1x sweetbay magnolia
• 3x red twig dogwood
• 1x shamrock holly

Before we arrived at these plants I consulted with a few landscape architects about our options. They mostly came back with designs that we were unimpressed with, but we got some good ideas for what varieties might do well in the space. In the end, we sat down and decided what worked best for our style. We've loved the sweetbays in the backyard, plus they're evergreen. The red twig dogwoods are, by all accounts, extremely hardy and have a wonderful red bark in the winter after they lose their leaves, adding some color. The shamrock holly is also evergreen and will sit at the front of the bed, adding a bit of winter color and privacy. The colors will be a nice complement to the bed on the front of our house, which also goes to a winter mix of red (firepower nandina) and evergreen (blue girl holly and cherry laurel). Yay, consistent design!

As it turns out, though, these plants were a bit hard to come by in our area. We have a lot of nurseries in our area, but calls to our usual suspects were fruitless, particularly for the magnolia. In the fall, they said. By luck, I was out on a Saturday morning running errands and I decided to stop in at a different nursery that we don't normally frequent. They had everything. I poked the top of the sweetbay out of the sunroof in the Forester to get it home.

Plants home, time to put them in the ground. A went to get some soil while I worked on prepping the bed. I pulled out the old clethra and hydrangea and dug holes to replant them elsewhere in the yard. We'll see if they take. If not, shrug. Doesn't hurt to try. The poor root systems of those plants didn't even try to infiltrate downwards into the wet rain garden soil; the roots had spread out laterally along the mulch/soil line. The clethra root "ball" was about 4 feet in diameter and 1cm thick. Poor thing. Hope it survives and thrives in its new location.

The new plants are set in about 4 inches higher than the rain garden bed to give them some drier conditions. I staked the sweetbay with some homemade stakes from a spare 2x6 I had laying around from when I made my latest round of workbenches. Lumber + 5 minutes = stakes. I like having tools.

We finished up just before it started raining. First impressions of the new planting situation are positive - the plants sit above the pooled water in the garden and look great. After we're satisfied that the drainage situation is still adequate I'll remulch the bed. Once they mature the garden should look full but not too crowded. Fingers crossed that the second planting goes better than the first!

Project cost: ~$250.
Project time: ~4 hours.