This document discusses a plan for managing water on a small suburban lot with a Victorian house. It notes features of the site like sloping terrain and adjacent impervious surfaces. Currently, the yard has lawn and ornamental/native plant beds that require infrequent watering. The plan is to install rain barrels to collect downspout water for irrigation. Overflow from the barrels will fill a small above-ground water garden. Swales will be dug to more evenly spread rainfall, and gabions will help manage stormwater runoff in the swales. The narrow lot and periods of flood/drought require a creative design focused on moving water around the site.

1. Water Analysis and Base Mapping
Michael Taurean Gagnon

2. Features of the lot
● 2 story small Victorian house with 2
downspots in the area
● Neighbors impervious parking lot adjacent
● Natural slope down towards neighbors to the
edge of the lot and the parking lot slopes to
the edge as well
● Fence line with gate

3. Current use
● Mostly lawn, compact, some in deep shade,
some burns and dies in the summer. Dry.
● Garden beds along the edges of mixed
ornamental, and native plants (grasses, a lilac
bush, 2 grape vines, and very deep rooted
natives)
● 2 downspouts, hose connection to the house,
dryer vent

4. Water Usage
● Water is used infrequently in this area due to
its current plant coverage of deep rooted
perennials (such as milkweed, false blue
indigo, liatris, switchgrass)
● Water pools towards the south and sits there
when it rains

5. Future Water Usage
● Digging swales to collect water not in one
large body, but spread more evenly
throughout the yard.
● Collect rain in rain barrels.
● Put in gabions to help management storm
water in swales
● Put in a small above ground water garden and
use excess rain barrel water to fill it.

6. Example of rain barrel and above
ground water garden.
Gravity would help water pressure,
the stand can be used as a vertical
growing space, the water garden
can supported pollinators and
edibles. Also a small home for
wildlife.
The water garden would be located
in front of the dryer vent to help
prevent it from complete freezing
over in the winter if I had fish in it. In
the summer, we hang up our
laundry.

7. Challenges
● This space is narrow and doesn't feature a
great diversity of water sources. Typical
suburban lot. Just rain and what comes out
the pipes. Positioning of swales into a usable
space is tricky here.

8. Lessons Learned
● Using even what seems a decent sized space,
really calls for some creative space saving
design.
● My yard goes through periods of flood and
drought within a couple weeks from each
other.

9. Site Specific Implementation
● For my site, I need to pay attention to where
water is, how to move it around the site and
be creative with the limited space I have.
● Im gonna focus on using rain barrels from the
two downspouts to use for crop irrigation with
a modification to overflow into a small above
ground water garden. Followed by swales to
move water around. Then implement gabions
in certain areas to create small water
infiltration spots instead of one big on.

10. Site Specific Implementation
● For my site, I need to pay attention to where
water is, how to move it around the site and
be creative with the limited space I have.
● Im gonna focus on using rain barrels from the
two downspouts to use for crop irrigation with
a modification to overflow into a small above
ground water garden. Followed by swales to
move water around. Then implement gabions
in certain areas to create small water
infiltration spots instead of one big on.