The {Almost} Accidental Gardener: June 2026

I planted a lovely little "fake rain garden" in the corner of my yard where everything drains to. It doesn't exactly meet true rain garden criteria - more like just dig a very shallow basin, put plants down there that like more water and call it good.

But where the downspout comes out.... 💡💡

Texted a friend "the red is where I need to remove the grass immediately" (needed to get out the invasive groundcover that asserted itself in this spot far from where I ever planted it) "and had an inspiration - maybe the yellow could be where I put a rain garden!"

Oh ye small-minded peasant...think larger, my friend! Reach for the stars! 🤭

Started taking out said invasive ground cover (loved my mazus reptans, but didn't know it would leap to other parts of the yard and start taking over! I've come to love native violets even more) last fall...

Then I moved the woodchips from the tree bed I created to start killing grass for the rain garden!

In the spring I measured everything out and did my perc test. It basically failed, but I won't let that stop me 🙈 (other times it's showed great signs of draining and at this point we're in such a drought that I won't have problems for awhile)

I obtained a ton of pavers and blocks for free off Marketplace, so that became the perfect thing for creating a clean edge to the beds that husband can mow over without having to string trim edging around so much so often.

Have I mentioned how much I hate seating paving stones?! Only had to shift and move and re-plan 4 different times, but hey, wouldn't be a landscaping project without such fun, right?!

Time for the other least favorite project...removing sod! 😬
Then remove the mulch and dig the basin!

I can't dig the basin too deep because it will compromise the integrity of the existing retaining wall for the berry bed. So instead, to get a basically flat-bottomed basin, I had to build up the lower end quite a bit because of the yard slope. Not ideal, but so thankful for those mini retaining stones I got for free to help!

I played with the layout of the stepping stones quite a bit, also changing my mind a few times.

Because I didn't want to build it up too excessively (I was squeaking by just barely with the extra dirt I had laying around as it was), the garden ended up being smaller than it should be for that quantity of water coming off the roof. But then I had the idea to make it tiered! So I built the lower portion that the upper portion can "spill over" into if needed (I also channeled water from the stepping stone path to run down into it.) I am super happy with how the stepping stone path turned out!! I divided a big creeping phlox I had there to try and start the filling-in-around-the-stones process.
(Unfortunately I need more small retaining wall blocks and the small ones are apparently nonexistent at the big box stores, so I'll need to keep looking. Right now there are bricks there temporarily wedged into the dirt, but too many impressive rains [see below] and I have a feeling they will not be up for the task!)

I was miffed to find the day I had to do all this finalizing, it unexpectedly sprinkled / light rained all morning. Oh well - Dad's coming in tonight so we can buy plants and plant tomorrow - I need this done!

Turns out it was a wonderful blessing in disguise! I was able to see how the rain garden actually performed without plants - where the low and high spots were!

I was able to level it out a bit better and then popped in some wild bergamot (also known as purple bee's balm - Monarda fistulosa), black-eyed susans, and a volunteer cardinal flower I found near the bed. Moved a couple things around and added extras from elsewhere like astilbe and spiderwort. Then started filling in and around the berm with violets and my lyreleaf sage that has propagated itself beautifully this year! And happy, happy - planted the shrubby St. John's Wort (Hypericum prolificum) I've had growing in a pot waiting for this lovely bed!

Ready and waiting!

In the morning we headed to the lovely native garden where I got everything except straight species switchgrass and cardinal flowers.

By the time we got back and had lunch, we had like an hour and a half before school pick-up, but man we moved!

Incredible!!!

When we got back, we finished up filling in with violets and black-eyed susans and ta da! Gorgeous!!

All that was missing was switchgrass which was on order at the nursery. (Turns out I had enough cardinal flowers to divide and plant what I needed without having to buy any! I also highly suspect my swamp mallow/hardy hibiscus seeds won't take off...especially after the next day described below, so I'll probably just need to buy one of those at some point.)

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So there we are getting ready for bed the next night and DOWNPOUR!

Within minutes the whole garden was a pool! Welp - talk about trial by fire! I envisioned mulch floating away, berms blasting out, and having to chase down bedraggled babies throughout the yard and replanting! 😱

But an inspection the next day showed it was perfect!! Maybe a bit of mulch displaced in a couple areas, but otherwise, nothing was amiss!! In fact everything looked even perkier than when they'd all flopped after planting!

I'm super excited I got another 'Red Sprite' winterberry in there! Realized I had room for a shrub, so long as it wouldn't get enormous and in my research discovered winterberries love water and are good for rain gardens! I already have the male for my other three Red Sprites, so I'm good to go! (The native nursery had them! And it was $45 less than when I'd had to special order that specific species from another nursery years ago! [Most other winterberry varieties grow too big and I didn't want them covering the shed window, so pigeon-holed myself into this kind.])

My Switchgrass came in and woo hoo, other than probably needing to buy a swamp mallow next year, it's done!