Raingarden Maintenance: A Good Design Strategy

Raingardens have evolved, with respect to design, within New Zealand over the past 20 years from ones that are just “doing the job” to others that have great features which include aspects of treatment through to aesthetic value.

Including raingardens within the design and development of commercial sites is (or has been) a reality of obtaining consents. Obtaining consent is linked to funding mechanisms therefore there is a straight commercial collaboration between resource consent granting the release of funding.

The on-going reality of raingardens is that there are issues to do with compliance of resource consent conditions, lack of records of drainage and location of raingardens, little knowledge of maintenance requirements by landscaping contractors together with the cost of the maintenance and disposal of waste.

Good raingarden design can be a great asset to future owners of commercial, and residential, development sites. Operation and maintenance of raingardens, and issues such as access, can be built into the design to ensure fully functioning sites that are resource consent compliant.

This paper presents case studies on the operation and maintenance issues that are to be included in the commercial reality of raingarden design.