Garden Designers Roundtable: Ditching the Lawn

By Evelyn Hadden

Of all the picture-perfect lawns I've seen, some of the most puzzling are located in ditches. Yes, some folks are spending time, energy, and resources to keep their ditch bottoms covered with short green carpets of turfgrass. Are they doing it for the rest of us? I don't know about you, but when I see a person riding their lawnmower into their ditch, rather than thinking, "What a good citizen and neighbor," I generally imagine the fabulous garden that could be growing in that ditch. Or sometimes I just think, "Ooh, I hope they won't tip over."

If you get no pleasure from maintaining the lawn in your ditch, here's a suggestion: convert it to a beautiful low-maintenance garden that will benefit you and your local environment too.

 

The Benefits, In a Nutshell

Swale Gardens (also called Bioswales) are added to landscapes to help channel stormwater runoff. Like their popular Rain Garden cousins, they collect rainwater from nearby roofs, pavement, and/or lawns and absorb that water into plants and soil. Unlike Rain Gardens, they also direct the flow of the excess water.

A well-planted ditch makes an ideal Swale Garden, which will benefit you and your local environment by:

• absorbing runoff,
• preventing erosion,
• improving water quality,
• capturing atmospheric carbon,
• helping to control populations of pest insects,
• adding biodiversity,
• beautifying your landscape, and perhaps even
• making it more comfortable and healthy for you, while
• reducing your weekly yardwork.

 

They Work in Dry Climates Too

In arid landscapes, you can easily spot the waterways--even when they contain no water--because they support relatively lush plant life. You'll see stripes of green winding down reddish slopes and snaking through flat, tawny plains.

Bioswales mimic these waterways. Their physical shape allows them to catch more water than flat gardens. Being self-watering, they offer dry-climate gardeners a prime opportunity to grow a wider variety of plants with less work.

 

Redesigning Your Ditch

Whether your ditch flows for months on end or only fills occasionally, take advantage of its aqueous bounty. Add rocks and plants to slow the flow; this gives soil and roots more time to soak up more water.

What to plant? Trade that lawn for ornamental flowers and grasses, woody plants, and plants native to stream banks and shorelines in your region; these will develop deeper and denser root systems over time, so they will be able to absorb more runoff each year. (Frequently cut lawns can't expand their root systems because they keep losing their leaves to the mower blades.) Include moisture-loving shrubs and trees to anchor the banks against erosion.

Now's your chance to increase your garden's biodiversity -- that's right, you'll be needing some new and different plants! If your Swale Garden is bordered by lawn, you can plant "indefinite spreaders" in it and use the mower to contain them. (In a dry climate, control spreading plants by refraining from irrigating outside your Swale Garden.) Also plant tall flowers... and for once, you'll get a chance to look them in the eye.

Well-chosen plants will attract animals as well. Native plants create the most effective wildlife habitat, as your local animals have evolved alongside the plants. Berry-producing native shrubs are particularly valuable for adding bird habitat to your yard, while native flowers and grasses will invite pollinators, butterflies, and insect predators.

 

Comfortable, Healthy, Beautiful

Your new garden--unlike the lawn it replaces--could make a friendly screen for a seating area. More and taller foliage will trap airborne pollutants and oxygenate the air, making it healthier for you to breathe, while underground roots and soil will remove pollutants from stormwater before it recharges nearby lakes, rivers, and aquifers.

As with any conversion from lawn to garden, planting your ditch gives you a chance to add colorful blooms, fragrances, fluttering and swooping creatures, seasonal changes, and winter interest to your yard. The window that overlooks your Swale Garden could soon be your favorite window!

Who knew that a ditch could be so rewarding?

 

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Evelyn Hadden, founder of LessLawn and founding member of the Lawn Reform Coalition, is a nationally known speaker and best-selling author focused on low-maintenance, nature-friendly, soul-satisfying landscapes. Her book Beautiful No-Mow Yards will be published in February.

Be sure to read the other posts from the Garden Designers Roundtable's collective blogging event on the theme of Lawn Alternatives:

• Susan Morrison : Blue Planet Garden Blog : East Bay, CA
• Susan Harris : Garden Rant : Takoma Park, MD
• Susan Harris : Gardener Susan’s Blog : Takoma Park, MD
• Shirley Bovshow : Eden Makers : Los Angeles, CA
• Scott Hokunson : Blue Heron Landscapes : Granby, CT
• Saxon Holt : Gardening Gone Wild : Novato, CA
• Rochelle Greayer : Studio G : Boston, MA
• Rebecca Sweet : Gossip In The Garden : Los Altos, CA
• Pam Penick : Digging : Austin, TX
• Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK
• Laura Livengood Schaub : Interleafings : San Jose, CA
• Jocelyn Chilvers : The Art Garden : Denver, CO
• Ivette Soler : The Germinatrix : Los Angeles, CA
• Ginny Stibolt : Florida Native Plant Society : Green Cove Springs, FL
• Genevieve Schmidt : North Coast Gardening : Arcata, CA
• Evelyn Hadden : Lawn Reform Coalition : Plymouth, MN
• Douglas Owens-Pike : Energyscapes : Minneapolis, MN
• Debbie Roberts : A Garden of Possibilities : Stamford, CT
• Billy Goodnick : Cool Green Gardens : Santa Barbara, CA

Comments

[Pam/Digging]

Evelyn, that's a beautiful yet practical solution for a tricky area to mow. Why not take advantage of the conditions in a runoff ditch to make a lovely garden? Perfect!

[Saxon]

Well done Evelyn. The Swale Garden takes advantage of nature's intention. What a concept...

[Genevieve]

What a lovely set of examples of an under-used concept. Kudos to you for bringing an entirely new element to this discussion!

[Debbie/GardenofPossibilities]

Evelyn, Great photos that really showcase how easy it is to adapt a swale garden to your native landscape. I especially love the idea of planting tall flowers that you'll be able to see at eye-level.

[Jocelyn/the art garden]

Wonderful inspiration here, Evelyn! The Swale Garden is cousin to the urban Hellstrip Garden, but requires a different understanding...thanks for the lesson!

[Rebecca Sweet]

Thank you for writing such an informative post, Evelyn. Love the practical advice combined with beautiful photos!

[Susan Morrison]

Terrific article, Evelyn. I just did my first bioswale last year for a small, residential client, and with the contractor's help, I was able to integrate the design into the project so that it became an desirable element, with no indication that it had a specific function. I don't think most people realize what an easy option this is for small scale projects - and every little bit helps.

[susan harris]

What an important but neglected niche to cover, Evelyn - very cool! Love that last one especially.

[Evelyn Hadden]

Thank you all for the compliments and for participating in this fascinating online discussion of different lawn alternatives. So many gardeners with great ideas out there!

[Shirley Bovshow]

Gorgeous examples of "ditch gardens" Evelyn!
Shirley

[Scott Hokunson]

Evelyn, I completely agree with you, why do folks insist on planting turf grasses in such inappropriate areas! Another would be a steep bank, but that's a discussion for another time. Your pictures and solutions to this problem are wonderful. Love that you included the ability to attract wildlife, as I think more people would enjoy their landscape if they knew how much fun it is having nature nearby. Great post!

[Tara dillard]

Great topic, and so obvious. Yet, NEVER thought to approach it.

Crop yields go up when lawns are replaced with a mix...

Only heard last year someone call a daylilly a 'ditch lilly'.

You are the queen of the ditch lawn

XO Tara

[Mamaholt]

I took my entire lawn, front and back, in my large city lot in Austin, TX. We are LOVING it.

Thanks for forwarding the cause!

You can check out my front yard here:

http://www.wabi-sabihomeandgarden.com/

[Daricia]

swale gardens! there are unintentional ditch gardens all along the highways in eastern nc, but planning one is new concept to me. great idea...so exciting!

[Jennifer Woelke]

Um.

The ditch I had on my last property was re-dug every second year or so. The forces that provided this maintenance made no effort to contact me with their schedule.

The forget-me-not solution may have worked for me, but anything that required a lot of time or expense would have been a one-way ticket to heartbreak.

[Evelyn Hadden]

Jennifer, like our city boulevards, those areas with easements do require something low-cost and easily replenishable (is that a word?) after "they" do their maintenance. An extra design challenge, to be sure.

Daricia, I want to see those "unintentional ditch gardens" -- now that's exciting!

Mamaholt, thanks for sharing those photos of your garden's transformation. I'm thinking you all get very little rain (especially this year...) and that's why you have no problems with erosion of the mulch? Also does it smell as yummy as I am imagining it does? (Though I confess I see it as a perfect blank slate and wouldn't be able to keep myself from adding large patches of low groundcovers, just to bring in more color and life.)

Thanks for the comments, folks.

[Randhil]

I thought I'd have to read a book for a discoervy like this!