

There was a thunderstorm last night, with torrential rain. The dogs, who hate thunder, hot-footed it into our bedroom at the first rumble, and were allowed on to the bed. Mary followed shortly afterwards and everyone went back to sleep apart from me. But I didn’t mind at all; in fact it felt good to be tucked up in the warm and dry, listening to their breathing and the rain drumming on the roof. Time was, before the building work, when I’d have to be creeping round the house on leak patrol, putting pans and buckets in strategic places. I lay here and thought of one of my favourite poems, WHO LOVES THE RAIN, introduced to me by Susan on her lovely High Desert Home blog.
WHO LOVES THE RAIN
By Frances Shaw
“Who loves the rain
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes,
Him will I follow through the storm;
And at his hearth-fire keep me warm;
Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise,
Who loves the rain,
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes.”
I particularly loved this rainfall because we had been needing it for so long, and when it was time to get up, I wandered outside to find the garden lush and green and quenched.

There is something magical about gardens wet with rain. There’s that astonishing Van Morrison song In the Garden, where he remembers…
“When I saw you standin’
Standin’ in the garden
In the garden
Wet with rain
You wiped the teardrops from your eye in sorrow
And we watched the petals fall down to the ground
And as I sat beside you I felt the
Great sadness that day
In the garden”.

And then there is the lovely Morning has Broken, whether crooned by Cat Stevens or sung by a church choir:
“Sweet the rain’s new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass.
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God’s recreation of the new day”.
Life goes on…. and thank goodness for that.
At Hampton Court Flower Show on Monday I saw another kind of rainy garden: an award-winning display garden called The Rain Chain, designed by Wendy Allen, which featured rainwater harvesting from a green roof via a gutter and “rain chain” leading into a sculptural metal water butt and overflowing into a sunken “rain garden” where excess water can soak away naturally.

This is an idea I’ve been interested in ever since reading Nigel Dunnett and Andy Clayden’s brillant Rain Gardens book a few years ago (published by Timber Press). The intention is to harvest and store water during times of heavy rain for use during drought, while also helping to prevent flash-flooding. All surfaces are permeable, and plants are chosen for their ability to tolerate short periods of both waterlogging and drought. I particularly like the rain chain itself – rather than channel the rainwater down an ugly plastic pipe unseen, it is sent dancing down a metal chain – and the splashy sound effects only add to the enjoyment.

I like the look of this, with its rusty metal water butt and grassy plantings. I recently saw another example, at a garden in Kent I was writing about, with the chic-est tidiest shed imaginable – see the chain flowing from the custom-made galvanized metal gutters into an old florist’s bucket (strictly speaking there should then be an overflow into something else – a “storm garden” planter or a ditch (some resemble a dry river bed in dry periods) leading to a pond or sump, or if necessary straight into the main drain).

I’m told there is also one at the Bernard Leach Pottery Studios in Cornwall. Originating in Japan and popularised in recent years in rain-ridden Oregon in the United States, I have a strong feeling that rain chains will become much more popular in years to come.

After all, it is possible to love the rain even more if one knows it is being collected up for use in drier times ahead.
Enjoy the rain everyone, should you be lucky enough to have some. And love your homes….

For background information about our project to turn a pair of derelict Victorian railway carriages into an eco-home, plus more garden writing, other journalism and information on my past, current and forthcoming books, please visit my website.


















