Mike Klassen loves his country lane in the heart of the city:
A short demonstration (recorded with my iPhone) of a swale I built during the summer as part of a new raised garden bed I built in the Country Lane behind my house.
I had a big pile of boulders I’d dug out of the ground over successive gardening projects, and a desire to deal with the pooling of water that happens during heavy downpours. The Country Lane deals with water exceptionally well, but when it’s really coming down it can pool up in the low part of the lane. The catchments only work if the water get to them easily, and when it did really come down last September, I ran outside to see how the swale worked.
It worked very well, as the video shows.
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BTW, the underside of the swale is lined with permeable landscape cloth to deter weeds.
