Bio Swale

Since finishing with the University of Greenwich, I have been working on the St. Peter's School pond area to try and prevent rainwater washing off the playground into a nearby garden.  I began by installing a couple of drainage channels (after 2 hours of chonking out concrete haunching beside the playground with a clubhammer and bolster) to divert the excess rainwater away from its natural flow.


The drainage channels then take the water under the fence into the pond area.  Unfortunately it is too low to flow into the pond so I have dug out a channel for a bio swale or rain garden where I will use plants that can cope with being inundated with water but also can cope with drying out (thanks again to Jamie for advice and his pdfs).


Whilst digging out the channel there was a deluge of rain "marvellous" I thought "a chance to see it in action", except it filled up pretty rapidly as I had only got as far as the Buddleja so I had to dig furiously to make the channel longer and allow it to get to the point where any excess will flow gently away from the pond area down a slope and away.  It is all working well and I look forward to getting the plants and planting then with the help of the children and making it look more than a muddy trench.


By the way, I received my letter of confirmation from the University today for my degree classification, an Upper Second Class Honours Degree, 2.1 by any other name.  So the teachers at school were right, "he does have it in there if only he would apply himself..."