Bountiful Landscapes & Consulting
  • Landscape Consultations
  • BLOG
  • Water Conservation
  • SAFE & ORGANIC Products for your Health & Home
  • Events & Classes

Bountiful Landscapes & Consulting

Transforming People & Places to Create Vibrant Health & Beautiful Outdoor Spaces

BLOG


​Summer

Picture
Check out my Events & Classes!
Picture

Categories

All
Berries & Other Fruits
Drought Tolerant
Foodscapes
Frogs
Micro Climates
Newsletters
NON-Toxic Cleaners
Projects
Pruning & Maintenance
Rain Gardens
Succulents
Water
Wildlife

Why water goes into the ground – and why it doesn’t

7/20/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Ideally, water that falls from the sky would go into the ground and nourish the plant life. The perfect balance. However, this is increasingly rare, especially in cities. As populations grow, construction methods are such that ground clearing removes the porous layers that would absorb surface water. Piping and ditch systems are created that “collect and send” water to another location. In storms, these systems become over-taxed and cannot handle the volume and flow of water. Flooding can, and frequently does, occur. Rural areas are better, but compact ground, hilly terrain, clay layers and subsurface hardpan keep water from infiltrating into that ground too, the result being mucky muck in the winter and hard-as-a-rock clay in the summer. Neither allow water to infiltrate. To get the water into the ground is to make the ground more absorbable. A very popular, inexpensive and relatively easy way to do this is with recycled cardboard. Cardboard works because it prevents photosynthesis so weeds don’t grow, it helps absorb & retain moisture, and the cardboard decomposes and adds ‘fluff’ to the hard ground, making space for water to ‘go in.’  I have used this method for more than a decade, in muck and clay, with great success. Here’s a really good example of how to do it. 

This Sheet Mulching example is courtesy of the Snohomish Conservation District
Cut grass & weeds.
Then, cover with cardboard, which will decompose over time.
Mulch. Then plant shrubs on the slope to absorb & retain water.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

  • Landscape Consultations
  • BLOG
  • Water Conservation
  • SAFE & ORGANIC Products for your Health & Home
  • Events & Classes