Have you ever thought about how you might personally help reduce residential water runoff to storm sewers or to recharge our ground water aquifer and improve water quality of streams and lakes? Creating a rain garden is easy and fun if you enjoy gardening, and its a great way to help the environment.
Typically, rainwater that goes into our community storm sewer systems goes directly to our lakes and rivers. Rain gardens, however, help protect the environment by reducing storm water runoff that would otherwise cause erosion and carry pollutants into our lakes and streams. They also provide a free source of entertainment for the homeowner as well as being aesthetically pleasing for all to see. It’s a win, win situation!
Here are some excellent resources to help you build a rain garden. Build one now so you can catch the fall rains and be prepared for next spring. Enjoy!
Rain Garden Puts Run-off to Work by Mandy Ploch.
Rain Gardens on Clay Soil Sites by Beth Storey.
Home Water Management by Kristin Kauth and Donna VanBuecken.
How to Build a Rain Garden by Dane County Lakes and Watershed Commission
Rain Gardens – a how to manual for homeowners by UW-Extension.
Sarah says
May 23, 2018 at 10:49 pmThank you very much! These are excellent resources. I’m enjoying the Wild Ones article by Beth Storey now. Hope to get working on my rain barrel Iin the north suburbs of Chicago) this weekend. 🙂
P.S. The last link from UW-Extension does not seem to be working. I believe I came across that same manual elsewhere. Try this link: http://www.soildistrict.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/rgmanual.pdf
Donna VanBuecken says
May 25, 2018 at 9:53 amThanks for letting me know about the broken link, Sarah. It looks like UW-Extension is no longer offering it for free https://hort.uwex.edu/articles/rain-gardens-how-manual-homeowners/. I did find it on the WDNR website also. https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/shorelandzoning/documents/rgmanual.pdf I’ve fixed the link. Good luck on building your rain barrel. We have four.