October 17, 2026 from 9am – 5pm

Free and open to all skill levels and backgrounds

Midtown Tucson near Campbell & Grant, address shared upon RSVP

A rain garden is a yard that drinks. Instead of rain running off the roof, across the lawn, and into the street, it gets steered into a shaped basin where it slows down, soaks in, and feeds the trees, shrubs, and grasses planted around it. Done right, one storm can put hundreds of gallons into the soil that would otherwise have been lost, and the landscape starts doing its own watering.

In this workshop, we’ll transform a backyard in a single day. We’ll start the morning with breakfast, coffee, and tea, and a lesson on passive water harvesting: reading where the water comes from, sizing a basin to the roof that feeds it, and shaping the ground to catch it. Then we’ll put it into practice as a group. We’ll take out a patch of lawn, dig a large rain basin, shape a mound from the soil we pull out, and run the gutter downspout underground so the roof feeds the basin directly. We’ll set accent boulders to anchor the design and work compost and woodchips into the basin. Over lunch, a second lesson on native plants will set us up to plant grasses, shrubs, trees, and cactus where each will thrive. Along the way, we’ll walk through how the Tucson Water rainwater harvesting rebate works and what the city looks for on a site plan, so you can go home and apply for the rebate yourself.

We’ll put down tools at the end of the day and sit down together for dinner to celebrate the work we’ve done.

We will specifically cover:

• How to read a site for passive water harvesting: catchment, flow paths, and where water wants to collect

• Sizing a basin to your roof and converting lawn to a rain basin

• Shaping a mound from basin spoils so nothing gets hauled off

• Routing a gutter downspout to a basin with buried conveyance pipe

• Placing accent boulders for both function and design

• Compost and woodchip mulch: what goes in a basin and why

• Native plants for our region: matching grasses, shrubs, trees, and cactus to the water and sun they’ll get

• The Tucson Water rainwater harvesting rebate: site plans, requirements, and how to apply

• Any specific questions you have

We’ll provide:

• Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and drinks. (vegan and gluten free options at all meals)

• Cold water on site

• Shovels, hand picks, rakes, and landscaping tools

• Gloves, extra hats, safety glasses

• Cups, plates, silverware (please bring your own if you can)

Make sure to bring your own:

• Water bottle

• Hat (we will have extras)

• Gloves (we will have extras)

• Closed-toe shoes and clothes you can get dirty in

• Sunscreen

Upcoming Workshops

October 24, 2026 from 9am – 5pm

Free and open to all skill levels and backgrounds

Eastside near Kolb & Speedway, address shared upon RSVP

*Please RSVP Below*

Not every yard has gutters, and not every yard is flat. On this site the roof sheds straight to the ground and the land slopes away from the house, so the rain that falls here is already on the move. The work is to catch it on the way down. A basin cut into the slope, backed by a berm and protected with rock, converts that runoff from erosion into deep soil moisture for native plants.

This homeowner just had her Tucson Water rainwater harvesting rebate site plan approved, and this workshop is the install. We’ll start the morning with breakfast, coffee, and tea, and a lesson on passive water harvesting: reading a slope, tracing how roof runoff moves without gutters, and placing a basin where it will catch the most water. Then we’ll get to work as a group, hand-digging a large basin on the slope and using the excess soil to build a berm path along the hillside that captures even more water. We’ll dress the basin with compost and mulch, then reset on-site rock and set Catalina granite cobble to armor the edges where water moves fastest. Over lunch, a second lesson on native plants will set us up to plant native shrubs and cactus that will thrive on the water this basin collects. You’ll leave knowing what an approved rebate plan looks like and exactly what it takes to turn one into a finished basin.

We’ll put down tools at the end of the day and sit down together for dinner to close out the day.

We will specifically cover:

• Reading a sloped site: where runoff comes from, where it goes, and how to intercept it

• Harvesting roof water without gutters

• Hand-digging and grading a basin on a slope

• Building a berm path from excess soil to capture more water

• Compost and mulch: what goes in a basin and why

• Rockwork for erosion control: resetting on-site rock and setting granite cobble

• Native plants for our region: matching shrubs and cactus to the water and sun they’ll get

• The Tucson Water rainwater harvesting rebate: what an approved site plan looks like and how to go from approval to install

• Any specific questions you have

We’ll provide:

• Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and drinks. (vegan and gluten free options at all meals)

• Cold water on site

• Shovels, hand picks, rakes, and landscaping tools.

• Gloves, extra hats, safety glasses

• Cups, plates, silverware (please bring your own if you can)

Make sure to bring your own:

• Water bottle

• Hat (we will have extras)

• Gloves (we will have extras)

• Closed-toe shoes and clothes you can get dirty in

• Sunscreen