As an environmental scientist for a wetlands consultant firm in Houston, I thought this article was great and worth passing on.
John
Thank you for passing this great article along. I agree with what you are saying I only wish there was a better understanding among most people. I know that some people have no idea about such things. If only more people knew about the hazzards of pollution. Do you have a link or a site that give instructions on how to design a rain garden, I would be interested in having one of my own. Chuckie in the Frozen North, Zone 5
Google is your friend :)
I had not really heard of this until now. I think I shall print that one out for further sudy. Thanks much. Now another thing to ponder upon for a while. I may just give this a whirl. Though by the time my runoff reaches any storm drainage (from the hard surfaces anyway) it is pretty much infiltrated anyway. I am on a pretty rural piece of land. The house is all roof though since it is a dome, so I was thinking of taking advantage of the runnoff to make a rain garden. It might be fun to do. Maybe...
Hey, has anybody you know of ever landscaped a dome structure? It is quite challenging. I have a picture in my head but have not platted it yet. I did do a "Mock-up" on a computer program that looked pretty good to me but it needs refining.
Mr. Bill
In addition to that link, I moved into this house a few years ago and the back corner of the lot was under water often enough that St Augustine wouldn't grow there. Over time, I poured a few bags of neighbor's raked up tree leaves in for compost-in-place, then planted stuff my parents gave me or I found tossed in the garbage: a tiny oleander that is now 6' tall, some of these 6' elephant ears (once they get going, use a shovel to cut all the roots 12" around the base and new plants will sprout), different ivy cuttings from potted plants just to see what would grow.
If you have a low spot, toss in water tolerant plants and see what lives! I'm in Houston so I tend to only toss in tropicals that can freeze back to the ground. Even a 2' piece of philodendron stalk someone trimmed and threw away.
You can get started without having to know which flowers to plant for what seasons and your gardening zone...plant what you have and worry about upgrading it later. By the end of the summer, you should know where the edge is well enough if you want to put in a rock border or somesuch.
John
We have a bunch of these here in Bellingham, Washington. I've heard them reffered to them as "bioretention" mostly, but I gather that they are one in the same. All new commercial construction here is fully responsible for their run off. All new commercial construction have bioretention, dry wells of these "filter boxes" (for a lack of a better word}.
These filter boxes are generaly found in large parking lots. These are just large parking strips planted with trees and shrubs. The way they work is run off is directed to the "box", the water filters down through layers of soil, rock, sand, fabric and charcoal. Part way down is a pipe that connects to the storm drain and after the box fills most of the way with water, the over flow goes to the drain. Otherwise the box fills and the trees consume the water over time.
We also have porous concrete projects poping up here and there. Porous concrete is way cool stuff and it costs just the same as regular concrete, but hte install labor costs are much lower.
"Bioswale" is the term thrown around here. The City of Seattle re-did a street up in the northend as a demonstration project to show how it could be done remedially on a large-scale in a residential neighborhood. I tried to find pictures on the web, but the best I seem to have found is a transcript of a radio interview.
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