Rainwater HOG's new Hedge HOG Allows for Easy, Attractive and Water Efficient Hedges

Rainwater HOG has some pretty innovative rainwater storage solutions. The HOG tank, designed by Sydney architect and award-winning designer Sally Dominguez, allows you to store water in small spaces - against side walls and under houses. The HOG tank is essentially a building block shaped storage tank that can be filled with water. It's made of food grade plastic, does not off-gas and is non-toxic. With a very thick wall, this product is very durable and is designed to last 20 years plus, according to the company.

This product has won some pretty impressive awards, but what we were particularly interested in at this year's West Coast Green is what other uses this company has come up with for this product. Well, we were pretty impressed. Rainwater HOG's newest product, Hedge HOG is a free standing green wall. Hedge HOG is sold as entire units consisting of 2 Rain HOG storage tanks and a framework, supplied by Green Screen, which surrounds the rainwater HOGs. These HOGs are connected to your roof gutters allowing them to fill with rain water, which then feeds into a gravity drip system along the bottom.

The system allows you to grow a very lush green wall of ivy, instead of a box hedge that requires a lot more water. It is very low maintenance and would allow the hedge to be irrigated on its own. Since this product allows for low water irrigation, the estimated return on investment is 5 years when compared with the water usage required for a box hedge.

So how complication is the installation of this product? According to Sally, installation is really simple, and it's a do-it-yourselfer product. Everything is screw together. A uni-strap back frame is used, so that the Hedge HOG can be screwed directly into supports in the ground or cast footing. The screen clips on and then you just plant your ivy and let the system do the rest.

With so many uses for Rainwater HOG, we were curious what Sally thought was its best use. "What we find is the most effective thing to do with rain is to flush toilets... for 4,000 gallons of water storage, you can save around 6,000 gallons of water a year," says Sally.

So what else does Rainwater HOG have up their sleeve? Well, Sally is working on a new product called Hydration HOG. This product consists of a set of 8 elevated Rainwater HOGs with a fitting that allows you to fill a water bottle. The idea would be to use these at festivals as well as large gathering events. The HOGs would be filled with city water and would supply refillable drinking water, eliminating the waste resulting from one time use plastic bottles - each set of 8 Hydration HOGs will eliminate the waste of 5,500 plastic bottles, according to the company. So where will you be seeing Sally's new creation? Rainwater HOG is potentially supplying these to the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. Can't wait to see what Sally comes up with next!