As I look across the street at the jungle that was once the sloping banks of the Ellerbe Creek, I wish that I could have looked into the future to see what the proposed 'stream restoration' was going to look like.
Promises of maintenance, benches for viewing the wetland, signage for education are all remembered but completely lacking.
As my post title suggests, you can make it your personal responsibility to contain the rain water that falls on your property or allow nature to take it's course and wash it all down hill to damage creeks, streams, rivers and lakes. If you choose the latter, the government will intervene to solve the problem and as in so many cases, you will end up with a solution that doesn't fit your neighborhood or add to your quality of life.
Right now no one would want to sit and gaze at the jumble of native wildflowers, grasses, shrubs and trees that completely block the view of the creek and poze a safety issue for those walking the paths around it. Low pockets in the constructed wetland areas hold water where mosquitoes breed. They are not constantly filled so that the possibility of having fish and other aquatic creatures to eat the mosquito larvae is nil.
But my rain garden takes it's 1300 gallons of rainwater with each one inch of rain that falls, filters it through the special soil my rain garden plants grow in and eventually allows it to percolate through the subsoil layers and return to the water table perfectly clean.
This problem is becoming more prevalent in many parts of the country as fast growing cities must supply their inhabitents with clean drinking water. If it hasn't happened yet in your area, wait and listen for the comments when drought ocurrs, reservoirs develop water quality problems and flooding becomes more widespread.
Like I said, it's your choice.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Contacting me through my email scjdurham@aol.com
This blog is really the ALIVE part of my rain garden experiences and the place you'll find the most information about living with a raingarden, solving raingarden problems and following my thoughts on what we're doing here on Earth to our usable water supply. If you have specific questions they will be answered most quickly by emailing me at scjdurham@aol.com, an email address I check daily or almost daily unless I'm traveling and out of range. You can also make comments on my Blog.
Drop me a line and let me know if you find my posts helpful and also suggest any topics about your raingarden you'd like me to address.
Cheryl Shiflett
Raingardenhandbook website is now inactive
For several years I've had a website 'Raingardenhandbook.com that was hosted by a small local company. This company has gone out of business and my website is gone including the link to my Raingarden Blog. It was a fine tool to learn about me and purchase my book via a pass-through to Paypal.
I have since had my book re-edited to a Kindle Book version and also will make it available for purchase through Amazon as an Ebook. Look for purchase opportunities beginning in September.
You can still follow the life of my rain garden through my blog that is updated on a regular basis. Reach my blog by googling raingardenblog.blogspot and look for my name in the description, Cheryl Shiflett. Do not click on any entries that include the old website address of raingardenhandbook.com.
Since only 2% of the world's water is in a drinkable form, it is imperative that we treat our Mother Earth with care and safeguard our waterways and ground water supplies. I will continue to promote better practices for handling our storm water (rain water) and discussing practices that can contaminate our ground water resource.
Cheryl Shiflett
I have since had my book re-edited to a Kindle Book version and also will make it available for purchase through Amazon as an Ebook. Look for purchase opportunities beginning in September.
You can still follow the life of my rain garden through my blog that is updated on a regular basis. Reach my blog by googling raingardenblog.blogspot and look for my name in the description, Cheryl Shiflett. Do not click on any entries that include the old website address of raingardenhandbook.com.
Since only 2% of the world's water is in a drinkable form, it is imperative that we treat our Mother Earth with care and safeguard our waterways and ground water supplies. I will continue to promote better practices for handling our storm water (rain water) and discussing practices that can contaminate our ground water resource.
Cheryl Shiflett
Friday, July 27, 2012
Spiderwort in the Rain Garden on July 27th, 2012
Rain Garden Problems - The Maintenance Issue
Everything in nature is constantly changing and so it goes even with a rain garden. If you've ever planted a vegetable garden and then left it to fend for itself, you quickly discover that dormant seeds in the soil have sprouted and a variety of plants you hadn't intended to compete with your vegetables are thriving. After a matter of weeks these intruders may choke out your tomatoes, beans and everything else you planted.
This same problem will ocurr in landscaped beds and any type of garden. Maintenance will always be required.
The key to keeping your rain garden as weed free as possible is learning to recognize seedlings from your intended plants from whatever else has popped up. In my book, The Rain Garden Handbook, a picture of tiny Baptisia australis (wild blue indigo) seedlings peek from under a larger Aquilegia Canadensis (wild columbine). Although very small, the tiny leaves are easy to recognize as being similar to those of the mother plant. These seedlings should be left to grow as they were intended to be part of your rain garden.
On the other hand, if you don't recognize the tiny leaves, pull the seedling. I generally fill an aluminum bucket several times during the spring season ridding my rain garden of unwanted plant species that the wind may have blown in or were dormant in the soil when I first created the garden.
Another problem can ocurr when a hybrid variety of, as an example, Houttuynia cordata 'Variegata' reverts back to the original form. This ocurred in one of my clients gardens and the plain green-leaved variety began taking over the whole rain garden. The only remedy was to dig every root of the plain green-leaved variety and add it to the compost pile. If left to continue spreading, it would have choked out the Hosta, Siberian Iris, Liriope and everything else that was not as vigorous a grower.
Another maintenance issue is replacing plants that have died. If you don't cover the ground with another preferred plant, then Mother Nature will and it will be her choice. I found that the Lobelia cardinalis, all twelve of them, were devoured by tiny green worms and by the third year they didn't pop up in the spring at all. I found a variety of sedum to fill some of the bare spots and the wild columbines had seeded into the other spots. The rain garden was again filled with plants that were attractive and suitable to the existing conditions.
Keeping fallen leaves from accumulating in the fall months is also a necessary chore. If allowed to build up, they can smother the plants you designed to be there. A leaf blower is preferable to a rake in this instance so that delicated ground covers are not ripped from the soil as you clean.
Other maintenance chores would be removing stems that have performed their purpose and now are 'brown and down' in the garden. Tradescantia (spiderwort) is famous for this dissappearing trick. It's lavendar to purple blooms continue for many weeks in spring but then as the heat of summer sets in, the stems begin to yellow and droop, finally lying on the ground in pitiful looking strings. These can be cut and removed to the compost pile.
Other maintenance issues will be discussed in their season of occurence.
Look for problems related to the installation of your rain garden next post.
Cheryl
This same problem will ocurr in landscaped beds and any type of garden. Maintenance will always be required.
The key to keeping your rain garden as weed free as possible is learning to recognize seedlings from your intended plants from whatever else has popped up. In my book, The Rain Garden Handbook, a picture of tiny Baptisia australis (wild blue indigo) seedlings peek from under a larger Aquilegia Canadensis (wild columbine). Although very small, the tiny leaves are easy to recognize as being similar to those of the mother plant. These seedlings should be left to grow as they were intended to be part of your rain garden.
On the other hand, if you don't recognize the tiny leaves, pull the seedling. I generally fill an aluminum bucket several times during the spring season ridding my rain garden of unwanted plant species that the wind may have blown in or were dormant in the soil when I first created the garden.
Another problem can ocurr when a hybrid variety of, as an example, Houttuynia cordata 'Variegata' reverts back to the original form. This ocurred in one of my clients gardens and the plain green-leaved variety began taking over the whole rain garden. The only remedy was to dig every root of the plain green-leaved variety and add it to the compost pile. If left to continue spreading, it would have choked out the Hosta, Siberian Iris, Liriope and everything else that was not as vigorous a grower.
Another maintenance issue is replacing plants that have died. If you don't cover the ground with another preferred plant, then Mother Nature will and it will be her choice. I found that the Lobelia cardinalis, all twelve of them, were devoured by tiny green worms and by the third year they didn't pop up in the spring at all. I found a variety of sedum to fill some of the bare spots and the wild columbines had seeded into the other spots. The rain garden was again filled with plants that were attractive and suitable to the existing conditions.
Keeping fallen leaves from accumulating in the fall months is also a necessary chore. If allowed to build up, they can smother the plants you designed to be there. A leaf blower is preferable to a rake in this instance so that delicated ground covers are not ripped from the soil as you clean.
Other maintenance chores would be removing stems that have performed their purpose and now are 'brown and down' in the garden. Tradescantia (spiderwort) is famous for this dissappearing trick. It's lavendar to purple blooms continue for many weeks in spring but then as the heat of summer sets in, the stems begin to yellow and droop, finally lying on the ground in pitiful looking strings. These can be cut and removed to the compost pile.
Other maintenance issues will be discussed in their season of occurence.
Look for problems related to the installation of your rain garden next post.
Cheryl
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Avoiding problems with your rain garden
In my last post, I mentioned finding many google topics involving problems with rain gardens. It's not surprising that it took a few years for these situations to creep up as rain gardens were not put to use until about ten years ago. There has been a learning curve and it will continue.
Three main issues contribute to a rain garden's functionality problems. They are:
- Poor design
-Poor maintenance
-Poor initial contruction
We'll talk about the poor design aspect today.
The depth, width and length of your rain garden must create a depression large enough to handle the volume of water you would expect from a normal rain event. To determine these measurements, you must know the rate at which water will perk or pass through your yards soil type. Even though you will be excavating a depression that you'll fill with a special rain garden soil mix, the underlying and surrounding soil are going to influence how quickly water passes on down through subsequent layers of sub soil and into soil areas surrounding your rain garden.
If we assume you have a sandy loam soil, water will pass through that soil in a matter of hours given a normal rain event. This allows you to dig a deeper depression with less surface area (width & length). Keep in mind we want the standing water gone within 24 to 48 hours maximum. You should be taking into consideration what square footage of impervious surface you are draining to this rain garden. Unless your house is quite small, it is doubtful that you'll be mitigating the rain water from more than a portion, perhaps one side of a roof. Every run off solution makes a small contribution to the overall problem so don't be dissappointed that you can't contain all your storm water.
If we assume that you have a heavy clay soil, water may take many days to pass through sub soil layers if it drains at all. In this case, the portion of impervious surface you can drain to your garden will be smaller and your rain garden will be much shallower and have a larger surface area. You'll probably want to increase the sand percentage of your soil mix. You won't encounter mosquito problems from standing water if all the water is actually down within the sand, compost, soil mix. A combination of evaporation and plant root water uptake will eliminate the rain water that was contained in your rain garden eventually.
Size isn't the only design issue that can cause problems. If the edge of the rain garden slopes off too steeply, you may not be retaining the rain water but merely slowing it down as it moves downhill. Make sure that the edge of the garden is high enough to prevent the water from running in and then right back out. You want to keep that water in the rain garden.
If you are just now considering the use of a rain garden in your yard, careful research will help to avoid making mistakes in your overall design. It's easier and less costly to do it right than to do it over.
We'll save the discussions on maintenance and installation problems for future posts.
Three main issues contribute to a rain garden's functionality problems. They are:
- Poor design
-Poor maintenance
-Poor initial contruction
We'll talk about the poor design aspect today.
The depth, width and length of your rain garden must create a depression large enough to handle the volume of water you would expect from a normal rain event. To determine these measurements, you must know the rate at which water will perk or pass through your yards soil type. Even though you will be excavating a depression that you'll fill with a special rain garden soil mix, the underlying and surrounding soil are going to influence how quickly water passes on down through subsequent layers of sub soil and into soil areas surrounding your rain garden.
If we assume you have a sandy loam soil, water will pass through that soil in a matter of hours given a normal rain event. This allows you to dig a deeper depression with less surface area (width & length). Keep in mind we want the standing water gone within 24 to 48 hours maximum. You should be taking into consideration what square footage of impervious surface you are draining to this rain garden. Unless your house is quite small, it is doubtful that you'll be mitigating the rain water from more than a portion, perhaps one side of a roof. Every run off solution makes a small contribution to the overall problem so don't be dissappointed that you can't contain all your storm water.
If we assume that you have a heavy clay soil, water may take many days to pass through sub soil layers if it drains at all. In this case, the portion of impervious surface you can drain to your garden will be smaller and your rain garden will be much shallower and have a larger surface area. You'll probably want to increase the sand percentage of your soil mix. You won't encounter mosquito problems from standing water if all the water is actually down within the sand, compost, soil mix. A combination of evaporation and plant root water uptake will eliminate the rain water that was contained in your rain garden eventually.
Size isn't the only design issue that can cause problems. If the edge of the rain garden slopes off too steeply, you may not be retaining the rain water but merely slowing it down as it moves downhill. Make sure that the edge of the garden is high enough to prevent the water from running in and then right back out. You want to keep that water in the rain garden.
If you are just now considering the use of a rain garden in your yard, careful research will help to avoid making mistakes in your overall design. It's easier and less costly to do it right than to do it over.
We'll save the discussions on maintenance and installation problems for future posts.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Gardening is much easier to learn than computing
Today is July 23rd, 2012 and I have finally been able to access my blog to post again. I've had 'technical' difficulties since October of 2011. Since that time, the number of entries when raingardens is googled has multiplied by 300%! I see raingarden problem entries. There are websites about what problems might occur and how raingardens might not be the answer.
We are going to explore some of these issues in upcoming posts. It really isn't rocket science but just like baking a cake, if you get the proportions or ingredients wrong, the thing flops.
Look for more discussions about creating a raingarden that solves your rainwater collection goals without creating problems.
Cheryl
We are going to explore some of these issues in upcoming posts. It really isn't rocket science but just like baking a cake, if you get the proportions or ingredients wrong, the thing flops.
Look for more discussions about creating a raingarden that solves your rainwater collection goals without creating problems.
Cheryl
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)