Recycling Rainwater

" Cannot thank you enough for the beautiful pool "

Written by Burkholder Brothers Landscaping Monday, October 17 2011 08:51

The past few months have wreaked havoc on our plants and our water schedule. First we experienced a drought, then a hurricane, and now we've had a lot of rain. It's hard to know what to do with weather this extreme. While there's no controlling the weather, you can control what you do with rainwater runoff. Rain barrels are an excellent way to store rainfall for use in the landscape.

Why Use A Rain Barrel?

• It's free! Spend $50 for one and then use it for one summer and it is likely you've more than paid for it. An easy way to calculate is figure out your water bill per gallon – then figure out how any gallons you need to break even. After that it's completely free.

• Rainwater is much better for plants to drink as it has natural nutrients in it and does not contain chlorine and other additives tap water has.

• We are letting free water escape our land. Unfortunately most new home builders remove the top 2-4 inches of good black dirt when leveling a plot. This good top soil is then hauled away and sold to companies that bag it and sell it back to you! This practice unfortunately makes our soil underneath the sod very poor and impermeable as it is typically hard clay preventing deep root growth for plants and grass. Water then takes a very long time to soak down into the clay, thus it winds up collecting as fast flowing water drowning the grasses' shallow roots and then most of it flowing into the storm drains where it is gone. Thus, a normal infrequent rain no longer satiates the water needs of most lawns (at least in my geographical location) and requires frequent watering using drinking / treated water during the summer. By using treated clean drinking tap water it winds up wasting those substantial resources to make it safe to drink.

Information Source: http://conflictedracer.wordpress.com/2011/04/24/rain-barrels/