Landscape project produces a paradise that harnesses shower power

The Orlando Sentinel (MCT) - Stephen and Brooke Combs were very clear about the landscaping design for their new home in Bella Foresta, a subdivision in northwest Seminole County, Fla.

"They wanted an enchanted garden, a cathedral in the woods," says the project's designer, Gelinda Backman of Designing Women Landscaping in Sanford, Fla. So that's what she gave them.

When producers at HGTV's "Ground Breakers" show heard about the project, they arranged to film the transformation during a five-week period last summer. The episode, titled "Waterfall, Koi Pond, Rain Garden and Terrace," debuted Saturday; it's scheduled to rerun April 19 at 7 a.m. on HGTV.

Backman and her crew started by thinning the trees on the Combses' heavily wooded, one-acre property. Then they built meandering paved pathways and a flagstone terrace with fire pit, sitting walls and a buffet for outdoor entertaining. They constructed a second terrace with a koi pond, waterfall and stream _ an oasis for relaxing and enjoying the wildlife that visits the garden, including the occasional Florida black bear. Finally, they laid sod, planted flowering shrubs to attract butterflies and birds, and installed landscape lighting.

The cost was a little more than $100,000. "And the most important element was the least expensive," says Backman.

That element is a rain garden, a feature designed to collect and filter stormwater runoff.

To create the rain garden, an eight-foot-square area was cleared and excavated to a depth of two feet under the oaks in the backyard. The sandy depression was then filled with blue-gray crushed granite, and landscaped with decorative rocks and plants that filter out groundwater contaminants. These include canna lily, iris, parrot's beak, toad lily, fern and philodendron.

Rainwater is channeled via downspouts and an underground pipe from the home's roof to the rain garden, where it collects and percolates down into the aquifer. During a typical summer storm, the rain garden fills in about 20 minutes and takes about an hour to drain.

The alternative, says Backman, would see the rainwater flow across the yard, down the street and into storm drains _ collecting fertilizers, pesticides, oil and trash along the way.

"And those contaminants end up in the underground water supply," says Backman.

The rain garden "is not only functional, it's lovely," says Brooke Combs, who has placed a bench near the rain garden for watching all the butterflies it attracts.

The Designing Women team was "professional and helpful," and working with the filming crew was interesting, if exhausting, she says. "You have to repeat everything over and over from different angles."

But the five weeks of disruption during the landscaping and filming were well worth it, she says.

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"We adore our yard. We spend most of our time in the backyard. The grandchildren love to come visit. It really does look enchanted back there."

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RAIN GARDENS FILTER WATER _ NATURALLY

Thanks in large part to the green movement, rain gardens are becoming a key feature in residential landscapes, says local landscape architect Michael Brown.

"People are catching on that this is the right thing to do. It's helping improve water quality. It's becoming an attractive feature in the landscape. It attracts wildlife. And if you sell it right, it probably helps the value of the home as well," says Brown of the Orlando, Fla., firm Glatting, Jackson, Kercher, Anglin.

A rain garden is a depression filled with sand and crushed granite or river rock and planted with vegetation that can tolerate wet and dry conditions, explains Gelinda Backman of Designing Women Landscaping in Sanford, Fla.

Its purpose is to capture excess rainwater, allowing it to percolate down into the aquifer. In the process, impurities are filtered out by the gravel and sand, and by plants that can tolerate both wet and dry conditions. The alternative is for rainwater to flow across lawns and down streets into stormwater drains, picking up pollutants along the way, and causing erosion and flooding.

In a storm, a 4-inch downspout cycles 2.5 gallons of water per second. And one inch of rainfall on a 1,000-square-foot house produces 600 gallons of water, she says. "A rain garden helps solve the problem of what to do with all that water."

It costs about $20 per square foot to create a rain garden, including the cost of gravel, gutter downspouts, pipe and a few plants, she estimates. A do-it-yourselfer could build a small one for about $150.

The concept of the rain garden has been gaining support around the country for the past decade, says Randall Baker, a landscape architect with Landart Landscape Architecture in Orlando.

In central Florida, "We are on the cusp of it becoming a trend," he says. "But as water becomes more scarce, we will be forced to use them more."

Backman thinks that time has come. "If we want clean drinking water 50 years from now," she says, "we have to act now."

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COLORFUL SELECTIONS

Plants in the garden of Stephen and Brooke Combs are generally low-maintenance specimens. They were selected for their color, fragrance, attractiveness to birds and butterflies (but not deer), tolerance for both wet and dry conditions and/or ability to filter impurities from rainwater runoff.

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Here is a sampling of the plants used:

African iris

Blue flag iris

Canna lily

Day lily

Fiddle fern

Firecracker bush

Impatiens

Ixora

Jasmine

Mandevilla vine

Parrot's beak

Penta

Philodendron

Plumbago

Tabebuia

Toad lily

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© 2009, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).