Do you know what a rain garden is? Rain gardens can be thought of as a personal water quality system. A rain garden is a shallow, constructed depression that is planted with deep-rooted native plants and grasses. It is located in your landscape to receive polluted runoff from hard surfaces such as a roof, a sidewalk and a driveway. Rain gardens slow down the rush of water from these hard surfaces, hold the water for a short period of time and allow it to naturally infiltrate into the ground.
Did you know? Seattle and King County are paying up to 100 percent of the cost for installing rain gardens and cisterns on eligible properties.
How do you get a rain garden? You can see rain garden types and talk to contractors at several Rain Garden Workshops coming up in north Seattle. One workshop will be on Saturday afternoon, October 11 from 1 to 4 PM at the Phinney Neighborhood Center. Another will be on Monday evening, October 20, from 6 to 7:30 PM at the Northeast Branch Library.
Another rain garden info meeting has been added to the calendar as the topic at the Thornton Creek Alliance on Thursday, October 23, 7:15 PM at the Meadowbrook Community Center. The Guest Speaker will be Cari Simson (Urban Systems Design), who literally wrote the book on caring for rain gardens.
Additional meeting info: On Thursday evening there will be a report on the clean-up of diesel fuel spilled into Thornton Creek from the I-5 accident on Monday, October 20.
On October 20, 2014 a truck spilled diesel fuel on the freeway, which ran off into the Thornton Creek watershed. Workers tried to sweep and vacuum up the diesel.
A rain garden takes rain from roofs, driveways, and sidewalks and directs that runoff to slightly sunken garden areas. These special spots are planted with specific plants that clean the runoff and are built with drainage allowing the rain to soak into the ground. Come and find out more about rain gardens and why they are important to improving the health and hydrology of Thornton Creek. And for the first 20 attendees at Thursday’s meeting, there will be a free native plant for their yard, rain garden, or favorite natural area from the Shoreline nursery, Go Natives Nursery – NW Native Plant Nursery!
Learn more. Join one of the free information sessions this October and November. At these free events:
- Find out what you can do on your property
- Meet trained rain garden and cistern installers
- See a variety of rainwater cisterns and rain garden designs
Learn more at www.rainwise.seattle.gov.