At the expense of what?

I find myself in an odd situation.

As I have championed rain gardens as a tool to help save our waterways from the destructive forces of large volumes of storm water run-off and the pollution that accompanies it, I am hesitant to support the proposed buffer zone to protect a portion of Ellerbe Creek that runs through our urban park.

Going back to comments in an earlier post, there are problems in our watersheds with the run-off from so much development (read that as impervious surfaces that don't absorb rain water).

In our area, the capital of North Carolina, that being Raleigh, wants the pollution flowing into Falls Lake, their source of water for the citizenry, to stop. So they look upstream and find that the Ellerbe Creek watershed needs some changes because the creeks water has the worst quality of any creek in the state. Think of this as pollution running downhill and problems running uphill.

A massive stream renovation project was done through Northgate Park, a city owned urban park. This gives the city/county of Durham credits for having created BMP's (that's Best Management Practices for those not in the know) to help offset the problems they are having in Falls Lake.

The park itself comprises a parcel of about 18 acres. One side is a heavily sloped wooded bank filled with invasives (read poison ivy here) that is unusable for recreation. This piece constitutes at least 25% of the park proper. The new creek banks and buffer area (no mow zone) that is proposed takes up another 5.2 acres so there goes another usable part of the park amounting to about 28%. Picnic areas, safe clear spaces beside the children's play area and an informal soccer field have been swallowed up by the buffer. The neighborhood association is already hearing from parents of small children about future safety concerns.

I could live with this except for the fact that the neighborhood of Northgate Park's Adopt-A-Park group has been diligently tending to the park and creating sight lines extending through and across the park for personal safety for the last 6 years. Guidelines for the clean-ups come from CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) principles.

We, as a neighborhood, have been fighting crime for years because of the proximity of a small commercial district and property management companies that aren't really managing to keep units maintained so that they attract law abiding individuals who would love to live near the school where they work or the business that they own. Instead we battle streetwalkers, drugdealers and party houses with front yards filled with beer drinking 24/7. Right now no one can hide in the park anymore because they would be so visible. That is about to change.

This new no mow zone will be filled with new trees (1400) and shrubs (2338. The shrubsvary in height from 7 feet up to as much as 30 feet. Granted the survival rate will lower this count but still, there go our clear sight lines for safety and crime prevention.

A little research of articles on the watershed and restoration plans for the creek on my part brought me to the conclusion that stream restorations aren't taking into consideration whether they occur on a golf course, in a country setting or running through densely populated urban neighborhoods.

And of course I find a way to bring this all back to rain gardens. If developments were putting rain gardens into yards, the rain water wouldn't be leaving most properties but instead would be soaking down through the soil and entering the water table in a benign manner.

With the cost of stream renovations sometimes totalling in the millions, doesn't it make more sense to offer grants for rain gardens and really do a serious promotion so that both established homes and builders/developers would be eager to utilize this tool to reduce their storm water run-off.

You'd think so wouldn't you.

Water quality issues

Just read in today's News & Observer that the cities of Durham and Raleigh are arguing over who bares the cost of cleaning up Falls Lake. It's water quality is deteriorating due to nitrogen and phosphorus going into the lake. Durham does not benefit (receives no water) from the lake but some main tributaries flow through Durham County on their way to the lake.

When the state Division of Water Quality inserts additional rules later this year, the costs of the clean up will probably increase.

What does this have to do with rain gardens you might ask. Rain water that runs across all our properties eventually ends up flowing into a creek, river or lake. As the rain water flows, it picks up impurities (pollutants) such as lawn chemicals, animal wastes, agriculture chemicals and things like oil, gasoline, tire dust, etc. from our love of the automobile.

We can stop much of that run-off by putting a rain garden in our yard. Think many people doing one small thing that adds up to big benefits to our environment.

IT'S OFFICIAL

Our fine weatherman just announced that we are currently down by 8 inches of rain for the year. That's quite a bit if you remember that one inch of rain moistens the ground to a depth of about 3 inches. Mmmm. 8 X 3 = 24 inches or 2 feet down that moisture is lacking.

But the flip side is that there was no storm water run-off from those lacking 8 inches going into streams and rivers and reservoirs that hold our source for drinking water.

I did some recent research on water quality and storm water control because I will be teaching a rain garden seminar the 17th of October at the King's Daughters Inn in Durham, North Carolina. I like to help folks understand the reason we need those rain gardens.

Here are some facts that came up:

• The Gulf of Mexico has a 9000 square mile 'dead zone' with low oxygen that kills fish and other sea life. The watersheds surrounding the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers all empty into the Gulf. The pollution is attributed to both agriculture (chemicals and animal waste) and urban sources (oil, chemicals, topsoil, trash). So if you keep your rain water and filter it down through your garden, you help reduce the pollution. You're part of the solution.

Sorry, didn't mean to make that rhyme.

• The water quality along the much of the Pacific Coast (US) is a Grade B.

Solutions listed were green roofs, rain gardens, and conservation efforts such as clean-ups. We organize a group every year to clean the creek across the street from us in the park. Every year there is more trash to remove and we spend the better part of a day hauling it out of the creek and piling it up to be picked up and disposed of by the City. The beauty of that rain garden though, is that once it's in, it pretty much takes care of itself except for pulling the occasional weed.

Rain garden's appearance with high temps and no rain

We've spent the last several weeks watching storm clouds from far off. They dumped their load far from Durham and we are now 7 inches down for the year. This picture shows you that if you choose your plants carefully, you can still have an attractive garden, even with temperatures in the 90's and no rain in weeks.

She's here!

As I write this post I hear the sounds of an aluminum water bowl being bounced across the kitchen floor.

The baby has arrived.

Little Lily came home to live with us on the 26th of July and life in our household hasn't been the same since. Every day is filled with laughter at the antics of a 9-week-old pup that knows no fear. We are striving to meet the 100 puppy kisses minimum quota our friend Allyson said are required.

I am beginning to suspect that she may be too smart for her own good. The reason I hear the water bowl is because it is empty and Lily wants us to know that it is empty and she wasn't done yet.

Poor water bowl, not even a month old and already dents are appearing from crash landings. I can't wait to see what happens when she turns 10 weeks and has picked up the additional 'steam' from gaining a couple more puppy pounds.

I'll try to limit adorable pup pictures since this is a rain garden blog but had to announce that we are the parents of a bouncing baby girl.

It finally rained!

July in Durham North Carolina was very dry. Week after week passed without so much as a drop of rain. Temperatures in the 90's baked everything in the plant kingdom.

Oddly enough, the one area of our yard that didn't turn brown was the grass that edged the rain garden. It would appear that the soil in this area remained moist from constant osmosis of rain water from the rain garden.

Fortunately it rained all night on Wednesday, the 5th of August, to the tune of 1 1/2 inches of rain. Our landscape plants have all perked up and the rest of the lawn area has returned to a green color, although not as lush as that patch around the rain garden.

Raingardening Lessons

If you Google rain gardens, you will be informed that there are 122,000 entries on this subject. Just out of curiosity, I went to a number of the sites listed to see what kind of information was available. I am happy to say that if you are an experienced gardener with vast knowledge of gardening techniques and field experience with hundreds of plants, you can probably find the information you need to create your rain garden. If you're not, you'll find just enough information to whet your appetite but no where near enough to actually design and install your garden.


And what if you're new to gardening? What if you don't know how to choose the best tools, know nothing about creating any type of garden and even less about what is required to take it from an idea to an in-the-ground landscape feature.

Yes, I'm going to plug my Rain Garden Handbook now.

Over the many years that I've worked with clients, I've found the biggest impediment to their gardening success was lack of understanding of the basic principles of gardening, those being how to select your garden site, understand the cultural requirements of the plants you specify for your garden, purchase healthy plants and plant them properly and then know how to provide the needed support until they become established. Oh, and what do you do to maintain your garden, what is required season by season.

So my book, The Rain Garden Handbook will help you learn everything you need to know to become a first class gardener. It contains detailed information for a very good reason. No matter whether you live in Michigan, Montana, or North Carolina, there are plenty of good plant materials and soil amendments available so that you can create the best rain garden possible for your agricultural zone.

Gardens should thrive, not just survive. Let's make a rain garden together!

This picture of Hibiscus cocineus blossoms was taken after three weeks of temperatures in the 90's with breezy conditions. The rain garden plants were looking a little 'fainty'. On Monday of this week, with heavy clouds seeming to almost touch the earth, we received 3/4" of rain. The next morning I was able to snap this shot. The rain garden plants miraculously perked up and remain that way on Friday morning. Careful selection of your plant materials should produce a garden that looks good spring, summer, fall and winter.

Freedom from 'rattiness'

Happy 4th of July!

This morning I headed toward the rain garden with scissors in hand. I had two items on my lengthy To-Do List that I planned on knocking off. First to the Acquilegia canadensis (wild columbine) to trim the browning seed stalks, all that's left from this springs beautiful blooms. After cutting, I tucked them into a plastic grocery bag to take with me to The King's Daughters Inn so that I can sprinkle little brown seeds throughout their rain garden. The wild columbine is somewhat difficult to find but is well worth the search as it is a lovely plant, grows easily and puts up with very dry conditions.

My second chore was to 'liberate' the Tradescantia virginiana (spiderwort) from its ratty look. I'm being kind when I say it looked ratty. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it during its glory days in April when it produced hundreds of royal purple blossoms that looked absolutely great beside the red of the wild columbine. Now, the first of July, it has declined in appearance to a point that makes me winch when I walk past the rain garden. I moved it last fall to a position farther back in the garden, anticipating this transition to the forlorn. I had intended to let it go until all the shoots had yellowed completely before cutting it back. There was still some green in the stems but I couldn't take it anymore. So the compost heap received an 'offering' today. The ratty spiderwort is adding greens to the pile. I'll dump the sweet corn husks on top of it later today when I start our 4th backyard cookout and then it will be forgotten until next spring when it again takes its place as the prettiest April flower in the rain garden.

The Ellerbe Creek Restoration

This is the section of Ellerbe Creek that I see from my porch. It sits directly across the street on the edge of Northgate Park. In this picture you're looking at a section of the creek that was restored during the winter of 2008/2009. Those gently sloping banks are part of the restoration. This section of the creek used to look like a deep V cut into the ground with the creek running some 14 feet down its steep banks. It got that way over the years because large volumes of fast moving stormwater collasped sections of the upper banks creating the V shape. That soil washed down the creek and some of it ended up in Falls Lake, a source of drinking water for the city of Raleigh.

During a heavy storm event of some duration, the creek would become a river and then slowly flood out to cover the entire park before it crept across the road and into our yards. We lost a good family down the street when they sold their house after the basement had been flooded twice in one summer. The FEMA flood map has been revised to expand the size of the flood zone in this area.

It didn't used to flood that badly but when a lot of development was done upstream with large expanses of parking lot, the volume of water increased. Whole forested areas became shopping centers. Housing developments also added to the impervious surfaces with roads, sidewalks and rooftops. We could have mitigated more than half that volume of water if those houses had added raingardens to their yards........And that is why I have a rain garden blog, to help others see what we each can do to help solve the problem.

Fixing "Impaired" water sources

From The News & Observer's June 25, 2009 Editorial section: Title - A cleaner Falls, faster. Falls Lake is the drinking water resource for 435,000 in Wake County, North Carolina. Unfortunately, under federal clean water standards, the lake is impaired. The editorial goes on to state that high levels of both nitrogen and phosphorus are causing increases in algae in the lake. You know what algae looks like, that sickly green stuff that clouds the water or if enough exists, floats like large clouds on the surface. This makes the water harder to clean for drinking purposes.

And of course, the source of this problem originates upstream, in this case, Durham County whose rivers and streams feed both Falls and Jordan lakes.

The editorial acknowledges the difficulty of the work necessary to reduce these levels, especially with a state budget crisis.

So are our lush green lawns causing problems? Well, in a word yes.

The importance of rain gardens becomes clearer now. We don't have to wait for our officials to take action, because we can start solving the problem right now by installing a rain garden in our yard. No, it won't be a total solution. Businesses large and small will also need to create mechanisms to catch their rain water and prevent it from entering our waterways.

But we can start. Think about it.

Visualize the volume

It's pretty hard to visualize how much space 6500 gallons of water would fill for the rain water we have diverted from the storm water system so far this year.

Out of curiosity, I checked out how many gallons of water it takes to fill a small swimming pool that is 12 X 24 with an average depth of 5.5 feet. Water capacity for that size pool is 12,420 gallons. So far this year, we could have filled half a swimming pool with the water that didn't go into the storm water system.

If you've ever watched America's Funniest Home Videos, you have seen what happens when the walls of an above ground pool collapse. Everything including people get swept away with the surge. Multiply that by 10 for impact. This gives you some idea of the benefits a rain garden provides for local streams that aren't being impacted by our run-off. Again, if 10 houses in our neighborhood did this, we would have prevented 4 or5 swimming pools worth of water from hitting the storm water system and the creek across the street. We would also have stopped the chemicals those waters contained from landing in our water sources.

Think about it.

seedling or weedling

In the Ongoing Care section of my book, I talk about differentiating tiny seedlings of the plants you want from the unwanted plants that sprout in your rain garden soil mix. Here is a tiny Baptisia australis (Blue Wild Indigo) growing among Sedums and Houttuynia. Although tiny, the leaves match exactly that of the parent plant. When in doubt, let it grow a season and then check it against the parent plant again. Baptisia australis will grow well in regular garden soil as well as your rain garden soil mix and this little one could be transplanted to another area of the yard in fall.

The Functioning Rain garden

Thirty six straight hours of rain gave us 2.9 inches of rainfall a few days ago. After filling the 4 rain barrels (260 gallons), an additional 1500 gallons were filtered through the rain garden and returned to the water table. The standing water only lasted an hour or two before it had all been absorbed.

Some Real Numbers

I thought it would be helpful to those considering a rain garden and whether it's really worth the effort, to tell you what impact our rain garden has.

Between the roof of our home, a small what I call brick 'cottage and the porch roof, we have 960 square feet of impervious surface. Since 1000 square feet of impervious surface generates 638 gallons of water during a 1-inch rain event, our roof generates 613 gallons of water (96%) in that 1-inch rain event. We fill 4 rain barrels for a total of 260 gallons of rain water retention. The remaining 353 gallons is filtered through our rain garden and returned to the water table. I checked the paper and on June 4th, the average year-to-date rainfall would be 18.47 inches. This means that we have filtered and returned to the water table 6520 gallons of clean water. I looked at my city water bill and that amounts to our water usage for a family of 3 for 2 months.

This doesn't take into account the fact that total water removed from the storm water system was 11,322 gallons that didn't dump into the creek across the street and erode it's banks. Now if just 10 homes out of our neighborhood of about 1200 had rain gardens, we'd eliminate 113,221 gallons of storm water run off and return that amount to the water table as clean water.

I think you begin to see the impact this type of gardening can have and how it can contribute to a regions goal of reducing the contamination going into reservoirs and lakes used for public water supplies.

Value of rain gardens recognized

You probably noticed my mentioning The King's Daughters Inn rain garden in an earlier post. I am pleased to say that they have recently received both an environmental award from the Durham County Soil and Water District as well as a Sustainable Properties award from the Durham City/County Appearance Commission. The King's Daughters Inn is a 17 room bed & breakfast newly opened in a restored building built in 1925. Part of the restorations included incorporating as many 'green practices' as possible in the restoration. An underground cistern, grey water system, 'smart' thermostats and the large rain garden that comprises half of their front landscape all helped to bring them these honors.

As water quality issues become serious concerns for many municipalities, the humble little rain garden suddenly is being recognized as one of the solutions. And the beauty of this solution is that anyone can help improve water quality and prevent storm water runoff by installing a raingarden in their yard.

As I was looking at this waterfall, I thought about the fact that this is another example of the collective might of rain drops coming together. Although lovely and fitting for it's location in the Appalachians, these kinds of torrents have no place in our creeks and streams at lower elevations where soft soils wash away with the flowing water. Rain gardens help to absorb the rain water shed by impervious surfaces so that storm surges don't destroy waterways that flow into our reservoirs and lakes.

Creeping Jenny in the new King's Daughters Inn rain garden is being covered with rainwater from a storm event. Happily this plant will do well in both dry and soggy situations and even takes the occasional submersion.