If our three week period with little rainfall in August could be called a drought, there’s no doubt it has ended. A storm several days ago, and a monster that’s just passed through have dumped a month’s rain. Today, the rain came by the bucket load, probably a few inches in an hour and anything in the garden not rooted in or bolted down was washed down the slope.

Now, there’s plenty of bare soil and piles of leaves, twigs, and bark accumulated against low branches shrubs and perennials. This will not be a big fix, most of the debris can be redistributed quickly, but the new planting area on the slope will require a bit more work.

I often see washouts in gardens with deeply dug bed edges that channel rainwater, and I really thought that drainage would be directed away from this new garden bed. But, that was not considering this much rain, and now the composted bark along the edges has been washed into the lawn. This is also easily fixed, but if this happens with every strong thunderstorm it’s more work than I want to get into.

A smaller area just planted by the greenhouse (above) has a slightly steeper slope, and with runoff from the driveway I covered edges of the planting with gravel, continuing a stone edged planting started a few years ago. Here, there has been no washout since the gravel was laid, and none in today’s extreme rainfall. This is not the look I prefer, but it is the practical solution to the problem, and in another year plants are likely to creep (or leap) over the gravel anyway.

I’m going to use larger stones on this edge. After seeing the washout from this brief monsoon I’ll err on the side of larger stones that won’t be moved. The large leafed ajuga will cover everything by next spring, so I’ll never have to be bothered to fix this washout again.