College of Dupage Students Make A Difference With A Rain Garden

Educating the community on the benefits of having water conservation oriented gardens is critical to help the storm water system in the United States experience less stress. Students from one College of DuPage classroom in Illinois are working to help make a difference for the water conservation in their community by building a rain garden.

Planted depression gardens called rain gardens, allow rain water runoff the opportunity to be absorbed. This water comes from urban areas which are impervious such as roofs, driveways, walkways, and compacted lawn areas. By collecting rain water in this way, it reduces rain runoff by allowing stormwater to soak into the ground that would normally flow into storm drains and surface   waters and then cause erosion, water pollution, flooding, and diminished groundwater. Rain gardens can cut down on the amount of pollution reaching creeks and streams by up to 30%. By saving water from automatically funneling into your region’s storm water system your community could be saving millions of taxpayer dollars as well as recharging your local ground water supply.

One man trying to educate college students on the importance of this concept is Jim Kleinwachter. He teaches a Rain Garden class at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn which is part of the Horticultural program there. This class focuses on how rain gardens, bio-swales and other native plantings can help reduce flooding, conserve water, and provide food and shelter for a variety of wild creatures.

Last week, Jim and a group of students from the college, went on a field trip to McDonald Farm, which is The Conservation Foundation’s corporate property, and built a rain garden to demonstrate the benefits of water collection. In the photos above you can see the class’s progress from their initial dig of the rain garden area (which is situated right below a downspout), through the plant arrangement phase, to it’s completion. In the top photo you can see the final product – a successful rain garden!

Congratulations on the beautiful rain garden team; it will serve to educate the community on how easy it is to build and install a rain garden for years to come. To learn more about rain gardens from the Conservation @ Home Program, feel free to click this link.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Comments

[krisp]

So a good work they've done!
If only i could do so!=)