Britt Lawrence

These ideas with the wood chips sound great for graywater... I can imagine hiding them into a raised garden bed, with ornamentals on top, and the percolation chips down below, with a pipe that drains out into an open wetland down hill or built just below with reeds. I have a meadow-beside-the-house, wetland downslope, idea in mind. Where no effluence flows I plan to create a pond... this near my well and to include crushed stone filtration... that is going to be my catchment system for non-drinking water, but I will use it mainly in the garden. My well... has issues. I have to remedy them. Its not such great water, nor is it scarce, that I need to worry about conserving it. What I do need to worry about is protecting it from the pollution of the landscape.

I plan to use woodchips as a material for an extended driveway loop... this is going to be a meadow-forest edge inspired front, to serve to buffer noise and runoff pollution from road and create a place to park... since I dream of turning my home into a bed and breakfast in the future.

My neighbors have a bed of cattails that they send their greywater to. Quite possibly the blackwater effluent from their septic passes through there... but I am not totally sure. Where I live it is best to assume none of the septic systems are up to code. The plumbing in my house relied on sending all sink water to a gravel pit and allowing it to run into ditches down slope. Often this means water runs through every yard in the neighborhood, and my well water is suspect. You might feel bad for me... but don't! I am seeing the possibility here of making the wet low-lying part of my yard into a wetland reclamation area, and since my own home is built on a hillside I have ideas now for how I can reduce the problem my neighborhood seems to be having, with their conventional but probably not well percolated systems.