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Jul 29
2011
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From drab to fab, we rescued the Lincoln Drive rain garden with the help of 24 volunteers! Why is this rain garden so special you may ask? Installed in the spring of 2007 with help from the South River Federation, the Lincoln Drive rain garden treats runoff from 1.6 acres of impervious surface in the Spa Creek watershed. With a storage volume of 2,001 cubic feet, this garden can handle 80.5% of a 1.2 inch rain storm and cleans an estimated 60% of each rainfall before it reaches Spa Creek. This amounts to a little over 2 million gallons of stormwater treated each year!
How is the one on Lincoln Drive different from any other garden? Rain gardens are bio-retention sites specially designed to handle and treat stormwater. First, the area is excavated to remove existing soils and pavement. Once removed, the area is filled with a 50% sand and compost mixture. Storm drains are cut to fit high water levels. You want the storm drains to sit above ground level so that the stormwater stays in the garden and does not go directly down the drain. The stormwater drains only catch the rain during higher water levels. On the upper slope of the garden, a rock diaphragm lined with filter cloth is placed to dissipate the force of water entering the garden. A rock-lined swale is also placed between the sidewalk and parking lot to handle water coming from that direction. Finally, the garden is planted with native plants that help to absorb stormwater. With all the hard work that went into making this garden, we want to keep up with the maintenance!
For three hours, volunteers braved the hot summer sun and removed invasive plants and vines that had taken over the garden. The rain garden looked beautiful afterwards – almost unrecognizable thanks to all the great groups involved. Coordinated by the South River Federation, volunteers from the Spa Creek Conservancy and Watershed Steward Academy guided volunteers as to what plants needed to be removed and what could stay. This was a great crash course in invasive species identification! We even had a hard working group from the Family Service Foundation come out to help us clean up all the weeds that were removed. Thank you to everyone who helped make this day possible!
Enjoy the slideshow!
