Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Susan Reimer

The rain garden is being installed by Chesapeake Rainscaping, a company in its infancy started by Jack Dawson, the brother with the engineering degree, and Jeff Dawson, the brother with the economics degrees.

The brothers also have something I don't have. The strength to do all this digging!

(Full disclosure here. I didn't find this company in the Yellow Pages. I have known both brothers since they were in elementary school.)

Jack calculated the size of my roof, where most of the rain will come from, and the slope of the yard and factored in the rain barrel I have on my deck, and he came up with the appropriate size of the rain garden.

Then we argued about that size.

My husband, who loves his grass and the cutting of it, has always viewed me as Hitler and his yard as the Rhineland. I have already taken over so much of it for my gardens that I have become a bit self-conscious.

Since the rain garden will be in a corner of my corner lot, we needed to make sure there was enough room between the rain garden and the giant Nelly Stevens holly on the corner of the house for the lawn mower to pass through on its way to the side yard!

Before he began, Jack also had to locate the utilities, an important step before digging.

Next: Saving the plants.