A swale is a swale

There is practical, and then there is elegantly practical. Walking past gardens with giant rock areas that were depressions like pools or streams, but not pools or streams, made me curious. A little research and I found out swales were a thing. They can be grassy or rocky, and their purpose is to control and capture rain water to add to the water table (aquifer) instead of merely running off. I really like the look of swales with giant boulders and pebbles, but knowing my limits when it comes to spending big bucks on something, I decided to look around at the junk I've collected over the years and do something similar. Let's call it the frugal person's version.

Don't ask me how I had a stack of roof tiles just sitting around waiting for a purpose. We don't actually have tiles on our roof so they weren't surplus. But have them, we do. We have a house water filter system that gushes out gallons of water every other week. I initially made a pipe system to get the water to a garden area so it was useful. Trouble was, it flowed into areas that didn't need it and wouldn't sink into the soil. It needed a solution to control the flow to actually benefit the area. Instead of gorgeous large boulders to edge the swale, the roof tiles (free of course) filled the bill nicely, forming a pool of sorts which is filled with river and pond pebbles (super cheap from Home Depot). Practical and beneficial to the Crape Myrtle tree and the hedges that line the property. It took a little fiddling, but it finally did the trick to capture the flow from the water filter. 

Then there was the problem with runoff from the rain barrels that overflow with even a short, light rain. Mud was flowing underneath the gate to the backyard patio. This was a bigger project, but with some of the roof tiles, free patio tiles, and river pebbles, we now have an area that helps maintain the mock orange tree and keeps the area clear of mud.

Those nice big rocks you see are courtesy of a neighbor who generously gave them to me. I pay for them in brownies and dog treats.

Now to show you how it is supposed to be done, the original inspiration for the swale madness:

In my neighbor's defense, there are usually no leaves in his swale, but we have had a series of unusual rain and wind storms and he lives on a street with multiple camphor trees which shed like crazy in the spring. He also has a stunning native garden. Sigh. One of these days I may learn a thing or two about gardening.