Rain Gardens

Our Buffer Brigade began installing rain gardens in 2003, under the guidance of landscape designer Kirsten Reberg-Horton.  Research shows that rain gardens are remarkably effective at treating phosphorus from stormwater runoff - on an individual or larger commercial scale.  Luckily, rain gardens are also fairly easy to install and even easier to maintain, and they're pretty, too!

Cleaning up our own act...

Here at University of Maine Cooperative Extension's Water Quality office, 495 College Avenue, we are very good at telling people how to maintain their landscape to prevent water pollution. However, until recently our own landscape looked like this:

With the resources of Ms. Reberg-Horton and the Buffer Brigade available, we decided to take action!

Issues we needed to deal with included

• access to the shed;

• snow plowed into this area during winter; and

• A LOT of water that comes off the parking lot during rainstorms.

Our revised plan (shown below) includes plantings of trees, shrubs, perennials, and groundcover to stabilize the eroding slope, a rock-lined trench to carry water from the parking lot, and a rain garden to capture and infiltrate the water. Also included is a curved path from the parking lot to the shed, and grassy areas on flat terrain.

Lyndsey Monroe, our AmeriCorps Educator/Volunteer Leader, and her crew installed plants and dug the rain garden.

The finished landscape and rain garden in 2005:

The finished landscape and rain garden in spring, 2006:

The rain garden in summer, 2007:

Shown below are sensitive fern and rhodora, typical rain garden plants, and wild geranium and bearberry, upland plants.

Visit our online publications store to purchase a copy or download for free "Adding a Rain Garden to Your Landscape: Landscapes for Maine," Bulletin #2702, complete with sample designs.