The Hendrikus Group has been pioneering bioswale technology for over 30 years.

Not able to find good soils when he came to America, Hendrikus designed his own soils.  Knowing instinctively that the land itself is the basis for good water, soil interaction was the key.  He designed his “EssentialSoil” custom soil blends accordingly; to act like bioswale engineered soil mixes that infiltrate, purify and, with the help of plants and soil microorganisms, remediate water.

He began designing and building what he calls “living bioswales” to handle problems of excessive storm water caused by urbanization, poor construction practices leaving hard compact soils everywhere, and poorly designed drainage systems that were inept to handle unpredictable weather patterns.  He calls them “living” not just because they contain plants, but because the entire bioswale functions within the ecosystem of the whole site.   These living bioswales promote healthy fertile soils, soil microorganisms, wildlife, and a healthy sense of beauty.

In fact, Hendrikus began to design bioswales that never looked like what most “bioswales or rain gardens” look like. His designs flow together with other elements of the garden or landscape.  People are completely unaware that they are looking at an engineered drainage construction.  Instead the bioswale blends in, and “lives” as the garden or land “lives”.

No Clean Soil, No Clean Water

“A rain garden”, Hendrikus will often say, “is every garden – it’s the whole garden – or it should be”. By using his EssentialSoil blends the Hendrikus group is able to turn even formal gardens or large areas of turf into sources of storm water storage by lowering the runoff rate.

Civil engineers call these “non-point” drainage systems.  It remains one of the most overlooked areas of drainage on projects that rely exclusively on catch basins and piping.

Large estates can utilize a non-point approach to drainage with bioswales andoften decrease the extent of their standard drainage systems.  These projects are far more “resilient” in the face of extreme weather.

A Design Imperative: Avoid Loss and Save Money

To the owners and managers of large estates this “resiliency” will actually prevent the real loss of property, home, expensive repairs, and wildly expensive corrective construction.  Bioswale construction is almost always far less expensive than the “gray” standard option. Living bioswales go further by making them beautiful and long-lived, healthy and functional, even in challenging circumstances.

Abioswale here?  You’re kidding!

Many of our projects involve unique challenges. One large project was built on a very complicated “knifeshaped” ridge that extended to an ocean-facing cliff.  Not only was it was built on a bird sanctuary but there was almost no room to work.   Another 30-acre estate had its primary residence in harms way of emergency storm runoff from its agricultural fields should the drainage system became overwhelmed.

Standard drainage systems designed from “status quo” expectations are not only very costly in these circumstances; they can actually fail to protect the owner from loss of property and land.

Engineered Synchronicity

Overall solutions in all of these cases included optimizing every part of the site in combination with an intensive living bioswale system with focused traditional “grey” stormwater piping.  This involved several features that worked in synchronicity with each other to create a highly resilient site that can weather severe and unexpected storms anywhere they occur.  The images here represent projects that would have incurred substantial loss if their site were not highly “resilient” to storm water.

The key is to start with the soil and end with the entire site.

3 Benefits from using Erosion Control Soils

All of these projects used EssentialSoil Erosion Soils throughout the site.  These soils accomplished 3 things simultaneously.  First they completely prevented erosion from occurring even without protection. Second, with a high infiltration rate, they provided a cushion or a buffer against high precipitation throughout the site that decreased the burden on any needed piping system. Third the soils promoted stability on all slopes by their own intrinsic and “internal angle of friction” and by growing very deep roots quickly.

Living Bioswales: nature’s improved catch basins

Living bio-swales accomplish three things with water; they filter, absorb and purify.  Water purification takes place partially through phytoremediation, which means through plant and root growth. Absorption occurs when water slowly seeps into the ground.  Filtration occurs when sediment gets trapped from plants and also settles to the bottom when the water slows down.  “Grey” water systems can’t do all three things.

Despite their effectiveness, sometimes projects require what is known as a “forebay” or “backbay” system of bio-swales to accommodate storm water.  One such project shown in the images uses one primary intense bio-swale next to a road, than pipes the overflow to a secondary “backbay” or living bio-swale further down the site where they was a small bit of flat land.

Living bioswales receive storm water, they infiltrate it into the ground, and purify the water through natural sediment filtration and phytoremediation.  Despite their effectiveness, sometimes projects require what is known as a “forebay” or “backbay” system of bioswales to accommodate storm water.  One such project shown in the images uses one primary intense bioswale next to a road, than pipes the overflow to a secondary “backbay” or living bioswalefurther down the site where there was a small bit of flat land.

Together, using highly permeable soils, with a network of living bioswales can truly make a project resilient against unpredictable storm water events.

Stop Thinking in Compartments: The Land Doesn’t Work that Way

It’s critical, however, that managers and designers do not always think in terms of engineered hydraulic capacity of drainage systems.  This compartmentalized thinking excludes the land’s inherent potential to solve some of our worst storm water problems.

The land itself needs to be thought of in terms of its living resiliency to accommodating storm water. This means focusing on the entire site. It means thinking differently and thinking of the soil as part of the system and solution everywhere on-site.

Furthermore when thinking of the land not just as a solution to a problem, but as a living potentiality for celebrating, purifying, witnessing, and conserving water over time we find interesting happens:

We solve our problems even better.

This type of thinking requires new approaches to project insight management,It requires new thinking in our protocols and practices – and in our engineering and design.  The projects represented in the images could not have been executed without living bioswales and our permeable soils.

Welcome to the Hendrikus group.We’ve been thinking like this for 30 years.