Maintaining a Rain Garden

How Do I Maintain My Rain Garden?

A properly designed rain garden should not be much different than maintaining any other garden on your property—weekly watering and weeding when the garden is first planted, followed by annual mulching, pruning, and replacing any dead or diseased plants. Rain gardens also should be inspected regularly for potential erosion problems and sediment accumulation. For more detailed maintenance information, see our factsheets below.

Rain Garden Maintenance Resources

Maintenance and Care of a Rain Garden (Multipage Factsheet)

Weekly and Monthly Maintenance Checklists (From factsheet above; printer-friendly)

Regulatory Rain Garden Maintenance Inspection Checklist and Guidance (Editable templates based on inspection forms currently in use)

UConn Rain Garden App (External website)

In the Weeds: A Guide for Maintaining Vegetation in Stormwater Treatment Systems in Rhode Island

In the Weeds: A Guide for Maintaining Vegetation in Stormwater Treatment Systems in Rhode Island is an illustrated guide of weedy and invasive plants known to invade and compromise the function of vegetated Green Infrastructure stormwater systems like rain gardens. It can be viewed as a PDF or on a mobile-friendly section of the RI Stormwater Solutions website

weeding

Weeding is a critical maintenance task. Here, volunteers help with the rain garden at Southside Cultural Center in Providence.

A rain garden before weeding, image courtesy of Rutgers University.

A rain garden before weeding, image courtesy of Rutgers University.

rain garden after weeding

The same rain garden after weeding, image courtesy of Rutgers University.

Disposing plant matter

Be sure to dispose of plant matter properly, especially if any of the plants removed are invasive species. Image courtesy of Rutgers University