How to care for, and learn from, your neighborhood street runoff garden
Easy street water harvesting maintenance tips to boost performance, improve your plant identification skills, and erosion-control rock work strategies and tips.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 Intro
0:18 Street-side rain gardens capturing street runoff
0:28 Cleaning organic matter off newly-planted small plants below the water line after storm – desert hackberry bush
0:38 Planting of basins
0:51 Uncovering newly-planted native grass below the water line
1:35 Western mugwort
1:55 Giant sacaton grass
2:10 Maintenance is reduced as plant grow above the water line
2:33 Maintenance typically done by adjoining neighbors – maintenance/stewarding agreement
3:22 Jojoba bush and living mulch of purslane/portulaca
4:06 Soot removal from plant leaves below the water line
4:22 How to remove organic matter from thorny plants – newly-planted desert ironwood tree
4:55 Inlet sediment trap and its maintenance
6:08 Key elevation relationships between sediment trap spillway and stormwater inlet
8:17 Rock work for grade control and erosion control – one-rock dam/rock-mulch rundown hybrid
10:19 Capture of free organic matter/mulch within basin – and its benefits
11:17 Coyote gourd vine
11:53 Need for weeding lessens as perennial plants grow to shade out weeds
12:14 Beneficial spurge forming living mulch
12:27 Removing exotic grasses
13:13 Enhancing plant identification skills by weeding
13:50 Neighbor interactions building community
14:04 Desert senna seedling – wait for flower if you don’t know what a seedling is
14:41 mature desert senna in flower
14:50 native solitary bees – they pollinate, but do NOT sting
- RAIN GARDEN PLANTING ZONES
Where, what, and what size to plant within your rain gardens
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/resources/rain-garden-planting-zones/ - MAINTENANCE/STEWARDING AGREEMENT for street-side rain gardens
https://dunbarspringneighborhoodforesters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Maintenance-and-Stewarding-Agreement-9-2025.pdf - WRITE UP ON THE CREATION AND PLANTING OF BASINS IN THE VIDEO
https://dunbarspringneighborhoodforesters.org/2025/05/annual-rain-native-food-forest-plantings-another-success-in-2025/ - PLANT IDENTIFICATION RESOURCES
- Invasive plants to remove in the Sonoran Desert
https://dunbarspringneighborhoodforesters.org/plant-resources/invasive-plants-to-remove/ - Recommended tree & understory plants in the Sonoran Desert
https://dunbarspringneighborhoodforesters.org/plant-resources/recommended-native-tree-understory-plant-lists/
FOR ALL THE DETAILS ON HOW TO PLACE, DESIGN, AND BUILD ONE-ROCK-HIGH EROSION CONTROLLING WATER-HARVESTING STRUCTURES WITHIN WATER CHANNELS see:
Chapter 10 of the new full-color edition of “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2: Water-Harvesting Earthworks”
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/product/rainwater-harvesting-for-drylands-and-beyond-volume-2-3rd-edition-new-2019/
FOR STREET-RUNOFF-HARVESTING CURB CUTS, CURB CORES, AND EDDY BASINS see:
chapter 8 of of “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2: Water-Harvesting Earthworks”
and
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/water-harvesting/harvests-of-different-waters/stormwater-street-runoff-harvesting/
- STREET-RUNOFF-HARVESTING INFORMATION, IMAGE GALLERIES, & RESOURCES
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/water-harvesting/harvests-of-different-waters/stormwater-street-runoff-harvesting/
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD RAIN-IRRIGATED NATIVE FOOD FORESTRY:
https://dunbarspringneighborhoodforesters.org/
ROCKWORK SEEN IN THE VIDEO WAS DONE BY DRYLAND DESIGN
https://www.drylanddesign.com/
See the new, full-color, revised editions of Brad’s award-winning books
– available a deep discount, direct from Brad:
Volume 1
Volume 2
All the details on how to design, install, and steward street-side water-harvesting rain gardens.