Why Do We Need Rain Gardens?

Why do we need rain gardens? Rainwater run off contributes to about 70 percent of the pollution in our rivers. Cleaner rivers are a goal of ours and we love to garden, so planting a rain garden, and installing rain barrels is a natural solution for us. Rain gardens are low maintenance and we are keeping the water where nature intended. The water soaks back into the soil and into the aquifer. Planting a rain garden may seem like a small part, but once you realize the amount of run off from you roof you would be amazed. Fittingly we planted our garden in the pouring rain on Mother’s Day and we know we kept over 400 gallons of rainwater from going into the sewers in that one day; we have not had standing water for more then a few hours.

I am so glad we installed rain barrels. Not only have we kept a large amount of water from the storm sewers; we have had free water for out plants during this dry August.