Surviving the long hot summer

As Iook back at my last post, I hadn't realized what a long uneventful summer it has been. The days were pretty much the same: mid 90"s, slight breeze, thunderstorms all around us. We lost several shrubs this summer because we couldn't get enough water into them. We added another rain barrel and now we're up to six. Despite rainfall amounts recorded at the airport, several miles away, their 3 inch accumulation would only amount to 1/2" here. What a difference a few miles makes.

In any event, I just took this picture of the rain garden. It has received no weedings as it should have (too hot and too buggy). As you can see, there are some tough plants that just weather whatever Mother Nature throws at them and then provide a beautiful showing anyway.

Rain Gardens Can Be Beautiful

I took this picture of a corner of our rain garden recently. I often have walkers from the park across the street come over and tell me what a beautiful flower garden I have. I of course then tell them that this is a rain garden and begin to explain what it does. It's a hard working little garden! Your rain garden can be planted with native plants and made to more match a wildscape but that doesn't suit every house in every neighborhood. I wanted mine to have flowers, color and have a variety of leaf textures to contrast and add interest throughout the growing period.

Is it more work to create and maintain a 'pretty' rain garden? Sometimes the answer is yes. This winter was brutal in our area and some of the ground covering plants died out, not to return. Mother Nature of course took care of that for me and germinated all the dormant weed seeds in that area. I spent a couple extra hours pulling the weeds and adding 'John Creech' Sedum spurium. I hope that they are happy and spread to fill the bare spots. Another sedum I planted two summers ago, Sedum 'Angelina' is still hanging in there but barely. By now, if conditions were right for it, I should have a large area, at least two square feet covered by this variety. Instead I have just a scant few patches. Gardens are always a work-in-progress.

We all live downstream from somebody

I attended a discussion last night called "A History of Durham's Watersheds: From Sewers to Green Spaces". The moderator, Robert Healy, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Policy at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University brought local historians and naturalists to talk about Durham's local watersheds and some of the problems Durham faces.

It is interesting to note that whatever we do with our land has an effect on our water. Because of a high ridge in Durham, we have water flowing into both the Neuse River Basin and the Cape Fear River Basin that eventually enter the Atlantic Ocean via Pamilco Sound or at Wilmington. On it's journey, the water makes stops in both Falls Lake and Jordan Lake, both manmade bodies of water. Jordan Lake was originally created in the 60's for flood control. Since then the uses have increased to include a source of drinking water, recreation and providing wildlife habitat. Falls Lake is Raleighs source for drinking water.

Unfortunately what folks are doing with their land uphill from those lakes is creating water quality problems. Those problems translate to large expenditures of money to clean up the creeks that run into the rivers that pour into the lakes.

My question has always been how do we devide the responsibility of who collects, contains, reuses and releases the water and what percentage of the problem is caused by neighborhoods and farms. Got part of that answer last night. 70% of the water quality problems come from farms and neighborhoods.

So what are we doing that is causing these problems? Land use ordinances can help solve the problem or if not thought out thorougly, can make the problem worse. No two cities have the same ordinances in regard to land use and management of storm water. Should we expect our cities, counties and states to solve all the problems by imposing restrictions on what we do? This approach adds layers of beaurocracy and that increases costs. Fertilizers and chemicals from manufacturing along with the waste products created from our transportation methods add to the problem. Don't forget the sewage spills caused by improper disposal of grease and materials that don't break down clogging the sewer lines.

So what can we, as individuals do to help solve the problems and how much of a difference can we make? Surprisingly we can do a great deal of good by putting rain gardens on our property. Take some of that green lawn we pour chemicals on to maintain and turn it into a garden that allows us to keep the rain water flowing from our roofs, sidewalks and driveways. Let that rain garden serve as a filter as the rain water slowly soaks through its layers before reaching the water table. Whether your soil is clay, sand, loam or some mixture of the three, you can design a rain garden to help retain more water from a storm event. It takes a load off the storm water management people who must constantly increase the size and capacity of their systems to handle the increased development in your area.

We would act if we had the knowledge to understand why it was so important. Here is a smidgen of that knowledge. Fix it yourself or pay someone else to fix it for you but watch out for the price tag. Government fixes are mighty expensive.

A Really Big Rain Garden

The Baker Exhibit Center at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville is a LEEDS certified building incorporating many green practices to limit the need for electricity, heating, cooling, and use of water among other special features. It is a center for education, research, conservation, economic development and gardening demonstrations. There are activities and interesting sights for all ages. Because of the large impervious surface footprint it creates, the rain garden below is needed to help capture, absorb and control the quantities of rain water it displaces.

This is the rain garden at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville. It is a facility of the University of North Carolina. Although difficult to tell from this picture, the rain garden is at least 3,600 square feet. It drains the impervious surface of the large exhibit center as well as paving and sidewalk areas. The groups of plants you see are measured in dozens of grasses, dozens of shrubs. It is the finest rain garden I have yet to see.

In the lingo of architects and engineers, this would be called a BMP. For us normal gardeners, let me translate: that stands for 'Best Management Practices'. In the past we have often seen depressions in the ground filled with large gray rock and maybe containing cat tails and willow. These were the beginnings of controlling rain water run off. They were utilitarian but far from attractive. Thankfully, we have come a long way in the design of visually appealing 'BMP's'.

The Spring Clean Up

I spent a couple hours last week cleaning up the rain garden. Although still attractive in their paper dry form, the grasses needed to be cut back since new green shoots were already emerging. The Siberian Iris had also started to push up new shoots with 2 inches already above ground level. Tiny groups of leaves were out on the Aquilegia canadensis (Wild Columbine) so the fine dry stems from last year needed to go. The Tradescantia (Spiderwort) is growing faster than anything else and is already 4 inches tall. That and removing leaves that had blown in during the winter pretty much took care of the spring clean up.

I'll be monitoring the garden more often now that we have had a couple of 70 degree days as dormant plants will come back to life quickly.

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, we are still lacking in rain fall.. The local weatherman says we are currently 4 inches below the average for this year. Thunderstorms are forecast for tonight and tomorrow morning and then again later next week so there is hope for some catching up.

Oh, and Michael is building some ingenious stands for the rain barrels from scrap lumber left over from building the puppy fenced in area. They elevate the barrels about 16 to 18 inches and help get a better flow for watering taller planters. They also eliminate the problem of having the hose kink at ground level when the barrel is too close to the ground and the faucet is a mere 3 inches from the bottom of the barrel.

Did I mention that the chrysanthemum I tucked into the rain garden last fall has produced a great many new shoots? Mums hate having their feet wet and the soil mix drains quickly so they seem quite happy. Think I'll add a few more this year for a nice colorful addition for late summer when everything else has bloomed out.

I had intended to include pictures of the before and after clean-up but during the process of downloading the images I received error code 503, whatever that means. I am a far better gardener than a computer person. It's time to call my friend Greg at Great Services to come find out why my computer is missbehaving. He can always fix my problems and demistify what occurred.

Cold and Quiet in the Rain Garden

There hasn't been much going on in the rain garden these last few months. It's been our coldest winter on record with 6 snow events to date. We seldom have even one. The rain garden continues to function regardless of the kind of precipitation that falls. I used night lighting under the dried grasses this year and created a luminous focal point for those traveling past our property. Again, I am eager for spring to see if all my plants have survived the colder than normal temperatures we have endured through December and now also in January.

I attended a Sustainable Landscape' class yesterday. I've attended the class in prior years but there is always new material. This year's presentation on rain gardens was more informative and it was interesting to hear the questions and comments made by class participants. This concept of a 'rain garden' is still not fully understood by many be they seasoned gardeners or those just tentatively practicing new gardening skills. One comment by our instructor was very important to me and that was: municipalities have learned their lesson in the way in which they should handle storm water. The old concept of move it as quickly as possible and as far away as possible has been replaced. Today we realize that allowing the rain to slowly soak into our soils has benefits both environmentally and financially to name two of the most important challenges we are grappling with.

We are finally getting serious about alternative ways to manage storm water. The Falls Lake situation, with Raleigh pointing fingers at us as the main cause of their water quality problems, is creating more of a sense of urgency for individual citizens to do their part. We can make a difference although we are only a small portion of the whole problem. But we have started to solve the problem.