Who says storm water management can't be pretty?

                                    Mums and Grasses flower in the October rain garden.

I went out to collect branches blown down in the latest cold front induced wind storm and happened to glance over at the rain garden.  The sun was in it's early afternoon position and shining at that perfect slant that makes colors so vibrant and shadows so interesting.

Last fall I had basically thrown the Chrysanthemums from our porch planter into the soil to see if I could keep them from freezing and ending up in the compost heap.  I love this coppery-red one and thought if it could survive, it would make a nice addition to the fall rain garden look.  Low and behold, the mums love the fast draining soil blend so don't rot out in winter like those planted in the other parts of our gardens.  

The cheery yellow blossoms are one of those happy windblown seed surprises that came from the Ellerbe Creek stream restoration across the street.  When the seedlings first popped up in spring, I thought I recognized the little leaves and decided to let them grow for the summer to see what they would become.

Nature is never static.  Ever evolving, plants either flourish or slowly dwindle away to non-existence.  I love this year's transformation of co-habitation by our plant families.

The Rain Garden Handbook now available as a Kindle Book

After 10 years of answering questions about rain gardens, I decided to write a book about them.  The questions came after my husband Michael and I created a rain garden in our yard.  Although other states had already created websites about the techniques of rain gardening, our state of North Carolina had yet to introduce information about them.  So we answered questions.  Lot's of them.  If you Google rain garden, you will see that today their are over 300,000 and climbing entries on the subject.

Most often asked questions were: What is a rain garden? Does it have fish in it?  And will it attract mosquitoes? 

It took two years to write the book and another year to get it properly edited and determine the best ways to market it.  I must confess, the last year could have been smoother if I knew as much about computers, software and the internet.  But then, I'm a gardener.

I wanted to provide the information about rain gardens in the most eco-friendly way possible.  In other words, I didn't want to cut down trees and produce hundreds of copies that would need to be shipped to folks, which required the use of other natural resources to deliver to door steps.

In the future, The Rain Garden Handbook will also be available as a Google electronic download to computers and as a last resort, a printed version will be available through 'My Space' for those not comfortable with Kindle or electronic versions or that don't have the ability to purchase in that manner.  I'll get to providing those options if future months and keep you posted when they are available.

For those looking for the Kindle version look for the following picture with the title:

The Rain Garden Handbook, Creating a Garden that Captures Rain Water

I hope this book helps inspire thousands of people to create rain gardens in their yards and by doing so helping to protect our waterways and water supplies.

Look to this blog for a history of our rain garden and how the whole project got started.

Please comment on the posts and ask questions about your own rain garden or the desire to create one.

It's started to rain here.  Think I'll go watch the rain garden for awhile.

It's 'Big Sweep' Day

This month and especially today, people in North Carolina are walking along river and creek banks, lake shores and cleaning up the trash.  You might wonder how this is related to rain gardens but consider it a partner plan that addresses other ways that our water becomes difficult to treat for human consumption. Imagine a creek filled with rusting cans, broken glass, plastic grocery bags, automotive parts and other machinery. Eventually metal tanks that contain oil or gasoline rupture allowing these toxic chemicals to mix with the water.

Then also imagine a wild creature cutting it's foot on the glass, becoming caught in the trash and drowning during a storm event or having the plastic wrapped around a creature's mouth so that is unable to eat or drink.  These are gruesome scenarios but preventing them is another way to help take care of our Mother Earth and her creatures.

Yes, it's hard work to crawl around in a creek and drag a rusting bicycle or automotive tire out during clean-ups.  Everyone isn't physically capable for this level of exertion.  But then again, you can put that rain garden in your yard to help. Once it's established just watch it work it's magic.   You can put rain barrels at the corners of your house and catch the run-off to later be used to water trees, gardens or other plants rather than turning on the tap.

I'd love to hear other folks ideas for protecting our water supplies.   Comment or drop me an email to tell me what you're doing.

Cheryl

A backyard rain garden or a storm water containment area, it's your choice

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.

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

Spiderwort in the Rain Garden on July 27th, 2012

Our maintenance chore is shown above.  Having performed beautifully in spring, this spiderwort has completed it's bloom cycle and now the browned out stems can be removed.  Next spring tiny shoots will emerge to become the two foot beauty that blooms for many weeks and adds a nice contrast to the red drooping bell-shaped blooms of the wild columbine.