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Growing solutions that benefit the environment

Photo

Photo by Kyle Bursaw

Chuck Campbell redirected the rainwater draining from his gutters to a rain garden in the front yard of his Oakhill Avenue home in Janesville. Rain gardens help prevent runoff by allowing the water more time to soak into the ground.

JANESVILLE — It doesn't look like much now.

Most of the leaves are fading to a gray-green, and few flowers still are in bloom.

But over the summer, the little rain garden on Janesville's near west side kept enough water out of the Rock River to fill a tanker truck.

This is the second year of growth for Chuck and Kari Campbell's 110-square-foot rain garden. The small, curved garden is centered in front of their home on Oakhill Avenue. They chose a mix of native plants that grow tall but not so tall they block the window at the front of the house.

The Rock River Coalition and the UW Extension will host two free workshops this week to teach property owners how to design and maintain rain gardens. Rain gardens are shallow indentations planted with native plants and grasses.

The gardens work to help storm water soak into yards rather than run into lakes and rivers. A 300-square-foot garden watered from a home downspout will infiltrate 12,000 gallons of water a year. That's enough to fill 2 1/2 tanker trucks, according to Rock River Coalition data.

Water that soaks through the ground is cleaner than water that runs directly off the surface, said Suzanne Wade, spokeswoman for the Rock River Coalition. Runoff also contributes to flash flooding, she said.

Before the land around the Rock River was developed, only about 4 percent of every gallon of water that fell during a rain ran off the surface into the river, Wade said.

"The river hardly even knew it was raining," she said.

Now, one-third of every gallon of rain runs from rooftops and asphalt directly into the river, she said.

Rain gardens are one way to turn that statistic around, Wade said.

Rain gardens can be designed to suit any homeowner's taste, she said. They can be planted with short or tall plants and in sunny or shady spots.

Gardeners should choose a variety of plants so that something is blooming throughout the growing season, Chuck Campbell said. That will help attract hummingbirds, bees and other beneficial insects to the yard, he said.

Wade said that rain gardeners should stick with native plants. They tend to have deeper root systems than non-natives, she said. Research has not been done to determine how well non-native plants can withstand the water that temporarily pools in rain gardens, she said.

Even if you can't see a lake or river from your home, the rain that lands on your roof flows into storm sewers and directly into bodies of water, said Wade.

"If you don't live on the shoreline, it's hard to think, 'My property is contributing to storm water runoff,'" Wade said. "But every household contributes."