What is a rain garden? What is the importance of a rain garden? What are the benefits of a rain garden?
A rain garden is simply planting native grasses and flowers in a low lying area of your yard, near a runoff source (the roof of a house, gutter downspout, other non-porous surfaces). If the water is caught in the rain garden it prevents it from simply running into the sewer system.
Rain gardens are important for the recharge of local groundwater. They are also important for the prevention of storm water runoff. Preventing or reducing storm water runoff will reduce erosion, prevent or reduce flooding, and improve water quality by reducing the number of pollutants that enter directly into local streams and lakes.
Rain gardens benefit you by filtering runoff pollution, reduce mosquito breeding grounds, remove standing water from your yard, create habitat for birds and other wildlife, reduce the potential for home flooding, reduce garden maintenance, and increase your garden enjoyment.
What size should my rain garden be? Where in my yard should my rain garden be? What plants should I plant in my rain garden?
Rain gardens can be whatever size you want. There is no set size that is mandatory to create the above mentioned benefits. The size is dependent on your yard and your preference. The size of your rain garden is slightly dependent on the amount of water you get and how badly it ponds in your yard.
Your rain garden should be placed in your yard at the low-lying areas where the water pools or ponds in your yard. In these areas it will be most effective. Other considerations to make for placement are if you have a sump pump or putter system where water is expelled into your yard. At these locations a rain garden would also work well for filtering water from your yard.
Rain gardens should be planted with native plants including grasses and flowers. Examples vary by region but for central Wisconsin some plants that could be planted include: sweet flag, marsh marigold, tall bellflower, bur sedge, hop sedge, wild blue flag iris, cardinal flower, Virginia bluebells, and sensitive fern. Other plants can easily be planted; wetland plants work best in these rain gardens.
Having a rain garden not only improves your life but the lives of all your neighbors as well. The improvements that rain gardens provide to the environment are also benefits that you may see after installing a simple rain garden in your lawn.
For additional information please see:
(http://www.uri.edu/ce/healthylandscapes/raingarden.htm)
(http://www.raingardennetwork.com)
(http://www.uri.edu/ce/healthylandscapes/raingarden.htm)
(http://dnr.wi.gov/runoff/rg/)
5 comments:
There are some very good points in this blog about rain gardens and I agree that they are a very environmantally friendly practice. I like the idea of putting them in low-lying areas where water ponds in your yard. Especially to help reduce the mosquito population around your residence. My only question with that would be how does the rain garden itself help to get rid of the water? Wouldn't the water still pool in that area even you had native vegetation planted there? Would some sort of drainage tile be needed underneath to fix this or do the grasses themselves actually get rid of the pooled water somehow?
The only other question I would have has to do with rain gardens in residential/suburban areas. The areas have alot of non-porous surfaces so rain gardens would be very effective like you say. But, I know in my hometown there are city ordinances in place that have to do with lawn up-keep and only allow grass to be so long and that sort of stuff. So would a large planting of wild/native grasses in your lawn be "undesirable" to look at to some people or would these just be considered like a normal garden and there wouldn't be any of those sorts of issues.
I really agree that rain gardens are a good idea, especially as more and more suburban areas are being built. We can't have all these pollutants running into the storm sewer and into our rivers and rain gardens are a great way to help prevent some of those pollutants from making their way into our waters.
In this blog there are many great reasons why people should begin to implement more rain gardens. I believe in large business areas where large parking lots are present or large impermeable surfaces are also present it should be mandatory for these businesses to implement rain gardens. In areas like this there are large volumes of surface runoff and high pollutants entering the sewers. If businesses were required build these rain gardens the would be less runoff going to water treatment plants and in these rain gardens some of the plants act as a filtration mechanism. Plants with these filtration qualities would work perfect to filter out some of the large pollutants that could make their way into the ground water. Not only do rain gardens improve water quality, but many find them very aesthetically pleasing. Which comes to my next favorite portion of the blog, using native species of vegetation compared to non-native species. It is always good to incorporate native species because this is an attempt to repair some of the natural vegetation which may have once been lost. Another good thing to add to this blog could be species that are popular based on an aesthetic value. Because everyone knows people would like plants that may have a very beautiful bloom age or just seasonal colors, rather then plants that are ordinarily a dull green year around. However the idea of rain gardens is one management practice I believe will become much more popular here in the near future. It is a practice that will easily spread through social diffusion. Once one neighbor implements a garden I believe more will come around and see the benefits and shortly after build one of their own. There are just so many positive benefits from rain gardens it would be hard not to implement one of your own. The real question is why would you not implement a rain garden in your area?
In this blog there are many great reasons why people should begin to implement more rain gardens. I believe in large business areas where large parking lots are present or large impermeable surfaces are also present it should be mandatory for these businesses to implement rain gardens. In areas like this there are large volumes of surface runoff and high pollutants entering the sewers. If businesses were required build these rain gardens the would be less runoff going to water treatment plants and in these rain gardens some of the plants act as a filtration mechanism. Plants with these filtration qualities would work perfect to filter out some of the large pollutants that could make their way into the ground water. Not only do rain gardens improve water quality, but many find them very aesthetically pleasing. Which comes to my next favorite portion of the blog, using native species of vegetation compared to non-native species. It is always good to incorporate native species because this is an attempt to repair some of the natural vegetation which may have once been lost. Another good thing to add to this blog could be species that are popular based on an aesthetic value. Because everyone knows people would like plants that may have a very beautiful bloom age or just seasonal colors, rather then plants that are ordinarily a dull green year around. However the idea of rain gardens is one management practice I believe will become much more popular here in the near future. It is a practice that will easily spread through social diffusion. Once one neighbor implements a garden I believe more will come around and see the benefits and shortly after build one of their own. There are just so many positive benefits from rain gardens it would be hard not to implement one of your own. The real question is why would you not implement a rain garden in your area?
In this blog there are many great reasons why people should begin to implement more rain gardens. I believe in large business areas where large parking lots are present or large impermeable surfaces are also present it should be mandatory for these businesses to implement rain gardens. In areas like this there are large volumes of surface runoff and high pollutants entering the sewers. If businesses were required build these rain gardens the would be less runoff going to water treatment plants and in these rain gardens some of the plants act as a filtration mechanism. Plants with these filtration qualities would work perfect to filter out some of the large pollutants that could make their way into the ground water. Not only do rain gardens improve water quality, but many find them very aesthetically pleasing. Which comes to my next favorite portion of the blog, using native species of vegetation compared to non-native species. It is always good to incorporate native species because this is an attempt to repair some of the natural vegetation which may have once been lost. Another good thing to add to this blog could be species that are popular based on an aesthetic value. Because everyone knows people would like plants that may have a very beautiful bloom age or just seasonal colors, rather then plants that are ordinarily a dull green year around. However the idea of rain gardens is one management practice I believe will become much more popular here in the near future. It is a practice that will easily spread through social diffusion. Once one neighbor implements a garden I believe more will come around and see the benefits and shortly after build one of their own. There are just so many positive benefits from rain gardens it would be hard not to implement one of your own. The real question is why would you not implement a rain garden in your area?
Rain gardens are more for filtering the water before it enters the ground rather than 'getting rid of it'. The point is to plant the area with species that can stand to be inundated with water because it may still happen. I also feel that if a residential area has a problem with a rain garden then the people who want to put one in should find a place to live where their neighbors care about more than just themselves.
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