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Help your local watershed By creating a rain garden

Help your local watershed By creating a rain garden. Presented by OOB/Saco Alternative Education. What is a rain garden?. A rain garden is a natural way to help protect our water resources. A rain garden works by collecting run-off water from roofs and parking lots into a dug out depression.

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Help your local watershed By creating a rain garden

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  1. Help your local watershedBy creating a rain garden Presented by OOB/Saco Alternative Education

  2. What is a rain garden? • A rain garden is a natural way to help protect our water resources. • A rain garden works by collecting run-off water from roofs and parking lots into a dug out depression. • As the run-off water soaks into the rain garden it is filtered by native plants and absorbed back into the ground. • This helps to protect our Saco watershed!

  3. What we did: • 1st step: calculated a garden space that would catch 30% of the run-off from the learning center roof • 2nd step: designed our 300 square ft. garden space to be kidney-shaped. You can chose any shape you like.

  4. Choose Native Plants for your garden • Why it is important to use Native plants? • they filter the pollution better • adapted to native soil and climate

  5. Choose a variety of perennial plant sizes for your rain garden Choose native hardy varieties that can withstand both wet conditions and dry Order enough plants to cover 1 every 2 ft (remember they will spread) Order larger plants for the center and smaller/ground covers for the berm We planted: For the center: Dogwood, Fother Gila, & high bush blueberries For the mid section: black-eyed susans, medium bush blueberries, mallows, hollyhocks, & daisies For the berm: Bearberry and low lying juniper Plant suggestions

  6. Steps3 & 4: • 3: Dig a depression at least 1 ft. below the sod from edge to edge to catch the rain water run-off. Remove sod and dirt to the outer edges facing away from the roof (or parking area) to create the ‘berm’ (the farther edge built up to create a bowl). • 4: Make sure that you dig your garden’s lowest point in the middle

  7. Steps 5 & 6 • 5: Cover your depression with 3 to 4 inches of top soil mixed with compost • 6: Overlap layers of landscape fabric parallel to the roof over your entire garden area except for the berm

  8. Start Planting!! • 7: Cut an X through the landscape fabric where you want to transplant your new plant • 8: Dig a hole bigger than the root ball of your new plant, place it in the hole with the root ball 1/4 in. above the surface and cover with soil. • Last but not least, spread a thick layer of good quality mulch over the entire garden and then WATER!!

  9. A Complete Rain Garden!!! • Our Rain Garden was made possible by generous grants from the Dept. of Environmental Protection & KIDS Consortium • We encourage everyone to come and see our garden at 80 Common St. and to make a rain garden on your property, too!

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