Rain Garden Sizing Calculator

Design Your Perfect Rain Garden with Precision Sizing

A rain garden is one of the most effective ways to manage stormwater runoff, reduce flooding, and create beautiful, eco-friendly landscaping. But getting the size, depth, and soil composition right is critical to ensuring your rain garden actually works. That's where this Rain Garden Sizing Calculator comes in.

Whether you're a homeowner looking to reduce water pooling in your yard, a landscaper designing sustainable drainage solutions, or an environmental consultant working on green infrastructure projects, this calculator gives you accurate, customized sizing recommendations based on your specific site conditions.

Why Use a Rain Garden Calculator?

Rain gardens aren't just decorative—they're functional stormwater management systems. They capture runoff from roofs, driveways, and other impervious surfaces, allowing water to slowly infiltrate into the ground rather than overwhelming storm drains or causing erosion. But if your rain garden is too small, it won't capture enough water. If it's too deep or poorly designed for your soil type, it may hold water too long and drown your plants.

This calculator takes the guesswork out of rain garden design by asking for key site details—your drainage area, soil infiltration rate, average rainfall, and desired ponding depth—then instantly calculating the ideal garden dimensions and planting zone depths.

How This Template Works

This Paperform template is designed as an interactive calculator that guides users through the measurement process step by step. You'll enter information about your property and site conditions, and the form uses built-in calculation fields to deliver instant results.

Here's what the calculator helps you determine:

• Optimal rain garden surface area based on the size of your drainage area and local rainfall patterns
• Recommended depth for the ponding zone, planting zone, and overall excavation
• Soil amendments needed if your native soil has poor infiltration
• Estimated water retention capacity in gallons

The form is perfect for landscape architects, permaculture designers, municipal stormwater departments, conservation districts, and DIY homeowners who want to get their rain garden design right the first time.

Designed for Environmental Professionals and Eco-Conscious Property Owners

This template is ideal for:

• Landscape architects and designers creating sustainable site plans
• Environmental consultants advising on green infrastructure and LID (low-impact development) strategies
• Municipalities and stormwater managers offering residents rain garden planning resources
• Conservation districts and watershed groups promoting stormwater best practices
• Master gardeners and permaculture practitioners designing water-wise landscapes
• Homeowners tackling drainage problems with nature-based solutions

Because rain gardens are site-specific, this calculator is built to be flexible. You can customize the form to reflect regional rainfall data, adjust infiltration rates for different soil types, or add custom planting recommendations based on hardiness zones.

Automate Your Rain Garden Workflow with Stepper

Once a site assessment or sizing calculation is submitted, you can use Stepper (stepper.io) to trigger follow-up workflows—send detailed planting guides, schedule site visits, generate PDF reports, or add the project to your CRM or project management tool. This keeps your rain garden design process organized and professional from first inquiry to final installation.

Payments, Bookings, and Client Onboarding

If you're offering rain garden design as a paid service, Paperform makes it easy to collect consultation fees, booking deposits, or full design packages directly through the form. Add a Stripe or PayPal field and turn your calculator into a lead-generation and revenue tool in one.

You can also embed this calculator on your website as a free resource to attract leads, then follow up with a consultation offer based on the results. It's a smart way to demonstrate expertise while building trust with potential clients.

Built for Speed, Customization, and Brand Consistency

Paperform's doc-style editor makes it simple to adjust the questions, calculations, or design to match your brand and workflow. Change the theme, upload your logo, adjust the color palette, and embed it on your site—all without code. The calculator can work as a standalone landing page or be embedded inline on your services page.

And because Paperform is SOC 2 Type II compliant and supports integrations with Google Sheets, Airtable, Notion, Slack, and thousands of other tools (via Stepper, Zapier, or webhooks), you can plug this calculator into your existing tech stack with ease.

Why Paperform for Rain Garden Calculators?

Unlike clunky spreadsheet-based calculators or static PDF worksheets, Paperform gives you a live, interactive tool that works beautifully on any device. The calculation engine handles complex formulas behind the scenes, so your users just enter their site data and get instant, accurate results.

For professionals in landscaping, environmental consulting, and green infrastructure, this template turns a technical planning process into a streamlined, client-friendly experience. And for DIYers, it demystifies rain garden design and builds confidence in creating a successful, sustainable landscape feature.

Whether you're designing one rain garden or dozens, this calculator saves time, reduces errors, and helps you deliver better outcomes—one calculation at a time.