Rain Garden Network

Fall is not too late to plant a rain garden

2011-10-10T17:01:00.000-07:00

Visit your local nursery and find all the native plants you need to plant your autumn rain garden. The prices should be low and the selection should still be pretty good. The plants might be a bit spindly but they will be hearty if the nursery has taken good care of them.

Go shopping and see what is available!

These are the issues that make it hard to do right

2010-03-01T05:21:00.000-08:00

In this article on MSNBC.com we find out that small businesses are pour chemicals into local waterways because ... it is "cheaper". Read on your

own: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35639472/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/

Here is a passage:

“We are, in essence, shutting down our Clean Water programs in some states,” said Douglas F. Mundrick, an E.P.A. lawyer in Atlanta. “This is a huge step backward. When companies figure out the cops can’t operate, they start remembering how much cheaper it is to just dump stuff in a nearby creek.”

New Information Guides

2010-02-28T15:15:00.001-08:00

Rain Garden Network is bringing out 3 new full color, laminated guides, they include:

Guide to Buying and Installing a Rain Barrel
Everything you need to know about buying and installing a rain barrel. This guide comes complete with a link to additional information that we could not fit on the guide.

Guide to Native Plant Maintenance
Simple to understand full-color, two sided, laminated guides that will give you season-to-season and year-to-year instruction to help you maintain your native plants.

Guide to "Greening Your Neighborhood"
How do you make your property as environmentally healthy as possible? Learn how to Green Your Neighborhood - One Yard at a Time with this easy to use check list!

Packets ($20.00) and individual guides ($7.00) available.
Quantity discounts for guides and packets are available.

New Clean Water and Sustainability Programs

2010-02-28T15:12:00.000-08:00

Rain Garden Network will be giving presentations and seminars on two new programs.

Greening Your Neighborhood

Creating an eco-friendly yard can seem daunting but even if you live on a small lot that is exposed to sidewalks and street traffic you can use these techniques to "green" your landscape and your neighborhood. This program focuses on simple, sustainable practices and techniques in the areas of preserving and conserving water, reducing air, water and land pollution, creating habitat for birds, butterflies, bees and other beneficial insects and addressing some of the issues that will reduce an individual's contribution to climate change.

Gardens, Pavers, Barrels & Trees

If you build a garden, plant a tree or add a rain barrel under your downspout you will be helping to reduce stormwater runoff and might never even know it. Eliminating stormwater sounds like a boring and dirt subject but if you think about it in the form of Gardens, Pavers, Barrels and Trees it’s much more accessible and something that all homeowners should know.

As well as the very popular:

Rain Gardens & Why They Are Important

Rain gardens are the newest, yet oldest, thing anyone who is concerned about the environment can do to improve their community by protecting water quality, creating habitat for birds and butterflies and beautifying their neighborhood. Learn the basic steps to building and maintaining this simple, proven and inexpensive solution to the problem of urban stormwater pollution.

Where are the Rain Gardens?

2010-02-28T15:09:00.000-08:00

We have had a good response to our request for local garden locations. Please continue to send information:

We are putting on a push in Chicago and the region to locate installed rain gardens. If you know about gardens in this area let us know. If you want your rain garden listed and you are not from the Chicagoland area send your information anyway. We hope to expand the program and make outreach to all communities.

Please send us what information you have about rain gardens you have installed, seen, designed, maintained, etc. We will be willing to share all information once we have organized it.

Please include as much information as possible. Name of garden, location (street address or 100 block), City, State, Install date, Installer, Sponsoring Org., whether it is a private or public garden (viewing a rain garden from the street without entering the property is important too) and any notes you might have. We will put all this information into a database and post it online. Photos are welcome but please, if possible, reduce them to 100K.

Visit Rain Garden Network to submit a garden location. Please send as complete a statement as possible.

2010-02-28T15:05:00.000-08:00

We hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season. We also hope, as usually, that you are all raring and ready to start new gardens in your community. As an incentive the Rain Garden Network is rolling out a series of web pages, documents and interactive material to help you show off your new rain gardens and teach other how easy and important they are to install.

In response to the early feedback we received from the “Find A Garden” effort we will be posting the locations, photos and specifics of the gardens you sent us. Initially there will be just lists and links but as the program grows we hope to have a lot more!

If you or your community would like to add your installations to the list just read below for the specifics. We encourage individual homeowners to participate as well. We are looking for publicly viewable gardens primarily but any information about any rain garden is appreciated.

Water Issues We Are Facing But Not Facing Up To

2009-11-23T06:52:00.001-08:00

New York Times series - http://projects.nytimes.com/toxic-waters

Infrastructure and progress is part of the problem. More references to come.

Natural gas drilling

2009-11-21T11:45:00.000-08:00

Propublica has been running a whole series of articles about natural gas drilling and water contamination issues. http://www.propublica.org/series/buried-secrets-gas-drillings-environmental-threat

Many of the problems happen in the northeast but there are other cropping up all over the U.S.

2009-11-21T08:23:00.000-08:00

Expanding our posts regarding water protection and conservation to issues about water privatization, gas drilling & contamination, oil & water and more.

We will also recommend well priced products that will help you act on your desire to protect and conserve our limited water resources.

Nothing better than morning in June (well nearly)

2009-05-29T05:22:00.000-07:00

Up early in the morning to see the garden in the best light, in the quiet of the morning. Love it!

When is 18" too deep?

2009-05-29T04:53:00.000-07:00

If you know you have a great deal of clay soil but you haven't done a quick infiltration test you'll never know how long it will take for rainwater will filter through your rain garden and into the ground.

We advocate shallow gardens with minimal amendments. Unless you have experience with clay keep it shallow and wide.

No rain garden should be deep. The difference between the garden rim and the top of the garden bed should be no more than 5" (with mulch).

If you go deep get an engineer. Otherwise let the plants do their job and go shallow.

Rain gardens are the cheapest, most scaleable option

2009-05-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

In certain areas of the country green roofs are very popular, in others it's tree planting and in still others it's rain gardens. Each of these options work well to reduce or eliminate polluted urban run-off. "Green Roofs: Are They Worth the Expense"

The only problem with choosing only one practice over another is ... "WE ALL KNOW THERE IS NOT JUST ONE ANSWER TO OUR PROBLEMS"!!!! Chicago's Mayor is obsessed with green roofs because it somehow works in with transportation climate change offsets. But by putting all marbles into one solution a lot of opportunities are missed.

Generally speaking, rain gardens are cheaper, easier and faster to install and have more benefits than green roofs.

Cleaning up the house

2009-05-23T07:07:00.000-07:00

There is something that is affecting our water. Something that is not coming from somewhere else. It is something that is everywhere and it is caused by the things we do everyday.

This is something is known as non-point source pollution. A big word for a big problem. We can also call it Runoff. In cities it is called Polluted Urban Runoff. In rural areas it is called Polluted Farm Runoff.

Rain Garden Network focuses on Polluted Urban Runoff. Although we will talk about farm runoff from poorly managed crop growing farms and medium, large and factory poultry, pig and beef farms.

This may sound depressing but there are answers. We hope to present the good, the bad and the regenerative powers of the Earth.

We welcome you to join us!