a nice addition to any garden…

Here is just one more example of how creative gardeners are.  A DIY kit, a quick paint job and some accessories are all you need to get an attractive, comfy bench that waters your garden.

This RainBench is about 50 feet away from the downpout diverter that fills it.  A 1″ irrigation line connects the diverter (seen in photo below) underground to fill the bench from the bottom.  Gravity provides the pressure to fill it, as long as the diverter is highter than the bench.  The plants love it.

Seriously, plants prefer rainwater enormously over city or even well water.  For one, it is naturally soft.  That means no chlorine, iron (turns plants orange/rusty), minerals or chemicals found in increasingly higher concentrations in ground water.  Some people even prefer rainwater, although you need to filter it properly before using it in the house at all.  For more info on systems out there for treating rainwater for drinking, check out earthship.com – and if you really want to know more, buy Michael Reynold’s book entitled ‘Water from the Sky‘