How does your rain garden grow?
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Members of the Rutland Natural Resources Conservation District demonstrate how to build and plant a rain garden on Tuesday evening in Rutland. Cassandra Hotaling / Rutland Herald |
Toolbox
By STEPHANIE M. PETERS STAFF WRITER - Published: August 27, 2009
During downpours, water would rush through Christopher and Valarie Clifford's yard at the corner of Irving Heights and Ridegwood Lane.
Both roads are on a slope, causing rainwater to cut a path through their front lawn on its descent toward Combination Pond a block away.
Those circumstances made the yard the perfect location for a rain garden, so when the Cliffords were offered the chance to have one installed for free by the Rutland County Natural Resources Conservation District, they jumped at the opportunity. Around the country, rain gardens are growing in popularity as a means to help municipalities and private landowners reduce the impact storm water running off impervious surfaces such as roofs, driveways and sidewalks has on surrounding waterways.
Tuesday evening, more than a dozen people – a handful of whom were residents of the Moon Brook watershed considering a rain garden themselves – turned out to help dig up a 200-square-foot patch of sod and dirt and install an array of water-loving plants, including bee balm and New England aster, selected by Valarie Clifford in the new, depressed garden.
"This is important because we do get the runoff, we do get the flooding and we do get the ice, which is a big concern," Valarie Clifford said.
Added Christopher Clifford: "Just reading how much the wastewater system is overtaxed, (we're interested in) any little thing we can do to help."
For conservation district manager Nanci McGuire, the event was a demonstration of how easy it can be to build your own and a small step toward reducing the storm-water runoff eventually making its way into Moon Brook.
"When people actually see a project like this on the ground, that's when people are going to buy into it," McGuire said.
Recently, her office began stepping up its public outreach efforts geared at raising awareness for how storm-water runoff affects the Moon Brook watershed, which includes Combination and Piedmont ponds. They attained a $5,000 Sea Grant from the University of Vermont Extension to fund a citywide survey on lawn-care practices, which they named the Rutland Good Stewards Initiative, and inserts about storm water and fertilizer that residents likely noticed in their recent city tax bills.
Education about low-impact development strategies, including rain garden and rain barrel workshops, is being funded by a $6,000 watershed grant from the state's Agency of Natural Resources, McGuire said. McGuire said the funding has supported two 25-person workshops at which attendees were able to build their own rain barrels, as well as the material costs of Tuesday's rain garden. The grant could fund up to three more rain gardens, she said.
The project got under way around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, with about five shovel-armed volunteers, led by UVM's Emma Melvin, who does water resource management throughout the state, attacking the Cliffords' well-manicured lawn. A group of onlookers, meanwhile, talked about their interest in being McGuire's next project.
"I'm hoping to get one because I'm right on the brook," said Susie Cagel. "Half of my back yard is still natural woods, so hopefully that helps, but a lot of my neighbors have landscaped all the way down to the creek and that's tough."
The sun had set by the time the volunteers cleared about 7 inches of dirt and moved on to planting a selection of native Vermont plants in the new garden. For most prospective gardeners, if friends or family are enlisted to cover the labor, the plants will be the greatest expense, Melvin said.
Working by spotlights and headlights, the group was able to finish the garden just after 9 p.m., McGuire said.
Wednesday afternoon, the Cliffords called McGuire to say just how thrilled they were with their new landscaping addition.
"He said at least three neighbors had stopped by today to say how beautiful it was," she said.
McGuire said anyone interested in learning more about rain barrels or rain gardens, or volunteering to help plant the next rain garden, can call her office at 775-8034.
stephanie.peters@rutlandherald.com
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