Rain Gardens in NY
This past week found us planting a series of Rain Gardens in NY by a lake. These rain gardens were composed entirely of native plants. Pictured here is the shade garden.
Species include Wild Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis), Heart Leafed Aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium), Wild Ginger (Asarum canadensis), Great Blue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica), Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis), Foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia), Alumroot (Heuchera villosa), Culver’s Root (Veronicastrum virginicum) and Trillium (Trillium spp). These gardens are engineered to prevent erosion from storm runoff. The native plants put down long roots and absorb tremendous amounts of water. Every year the roots die back, giving the soil excellent aeration.
This demonstration poster was produced by the Lake George Fund. The Lake George Waterkeeper encourages all lakeside residents to learn about rain garden design and organic gardening methods. Storm water mitigation is important everywhere, but at the lake pollution runoff consequences hurt noticeably and quickly. Native plants were doing this natural stabilization service in the wild, before European humans colonized America. As construction and fragmentation have outpaced habitat restoration in our country for five or seven decades now, finally we learn and teach each other about the regenerative strength of our American native plants.
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