Rain Gardens is made to help slow down, soak-up water and keeps water in your yard.

1. Watch how the water or rain water flows off into your yard. Make the necessary adjustments and avoid standing water for a long periods of time.
2. Stay at least 10 feet from the foundation of your house.
3. Use native plants that uses less water, but can also survive with no water.

Plants like Gulf muhly grass, Golden canna and Buttonbush are great for rain gardens.

Porous Pavement can be made out of gravel, crushed shells, plastic/cement lattice with vegetation and pavers. To replace cement driveways and sidewalks can be a big expense, but the cement surface allows water to flow quickly off and into the streets, whereas porous pavements keeps water from running off.

Rain Barrels are a great way to collect rain water for your garden use. A 55 gallon food grade barrel or a heavy duty plastic trash can is easy to place where rain water pours from the roof. Install a spigot near the bottom of the barrel or buy a ready-made barrel that blends with your house color. Simply hook up your garden hose and you’re ready to water those plants.

We’ve also found that there are eco-friendly pump system products currently in the market that will extract water from rain barrels with enough pressure to run a sprinkler or wash your car. Another big savings is that these pump systems runs on battery that is solar powered.

Micro-Irrigation (aka “drip” or “mist”) irrigation is the most efficient way to water your plants. Water goes directly to the roots thus using less water than other irrigation systems and less water runoff. Micro-irrigation works on gallons per hour unlike irrigation systems that works on gallons per minute.

In summary, by using any of these suggestions for a GREEN yard, it will not only have less of an impact on the environment, but you can do it yourself and SAVE you MONEY on your next water bill! GO GREEN!