The Rain Garden at NVCC is Complete!

Students planting

We finished planting the rain garden at Naugatuck Valley Community College on Monday, April 28, 2015 and it came out beautifully! We worked with the diverse and well thought out plant selection and design that the students had created earlier in the semester. All of the plants came from Earth Tones Native Plant Nursery and Landscape. A few of those plants included Baptista Australis (Blue Wild Indigo), Hibiscus Moscheutos (Rose Mallow), and Panicum Virgatum (Switch Grass). Unfortunately, we will not be able to see the plants in bloom for another several months. For now, they are still coming out of dormancy as you can see from the picture below with Jenna.  Make sure to keep reading this blog to see pictures of the rain garden after the plants have bloomed! Jenna and I will be heading up to NVCC periodically to check on the rain garden's progress!

Baptista Australis (Blue Wild Indigo)
 in bloom

Jenna in front of completed rain garden

Hibiscus Moscheutos (Rose Mallow)
 in bloom

Plants laid out before planting

Planting went fairly quickly as all the students in the class came down to help. Prior to the student's arrival, Jenna, Mike, and I created a type of rip rap out of river jacks to slow water coming into the rain garden from the curb cut. Mike had laid out all the plants in their intended spots prior to planting and had created very nice rock formation near the inflow and outflow pipes of the garden. After all the plants were in their places, we covered them with pots (its very easy to lose the little plugs once they are planted) and mulched the entire rain garden.

Rip rap from curb cut to rain garden

Rock formation at outflow pipe

We are so pleased with the way everything came out. Now go out and plant your rain gardens!

Jeremy

Grant Updates: New Raingarden Site at TRCC, Site Prep Day at NVCC, Long Island Sound Citizens Summit

Old site at TRCC

New Site at TRCC

We have had quite a busy couple of weeks! During a meeting at Three Rivers Community College, Mike Deitz of NEMO (Non-point Education for Municipal Officials) and I noticed that there was some standing water just beyond the boundaries of our rain garden site. This is concerning for a couple of reasons - Because of the standing water, the site could very well be a wetland. If this is the case, we would not be constructing a rain garden, but rather beautifying the area with little stormwater management features . The second concern of ours was plant selection. Typical rain garden plants won't do well in standing water or water that doesn't drain in a couple of days. Finally, the parking lot adjacent to the original site had no storm drains. This means that whoever designed that lot did so with stormwater management in mind. All water runoff already drains via the gradient into our original raingarden site. Because of these reasons, we decided that the current location is less than ideal. We then started to scout for other possibilities. Diba Khan-Bureau of TRCC, who's students will be designing and constructing this rain garden, showed Mike and me a new spot behind the school green house with a natural depression and which is adjacent to a large parking lot from where we can mitigate stormwater more effectively!

Site work and planting will commence in the beginning of May!

Jenna working at NVCC

Ready for planting!

 At Naugatuck Valley Community College, we finished the site prep on Monday, April 13 and are ready for planting on April 20! The area looks great and the students have added some features to their design that weren't apparent before the clean-up!

We discovered that the curb cut, which allows storm water to drain into the basin, would be a great place to put some gravel and 'river jacks' (small stones). This will add to the aesthetic appeal and lead storm water to a very dense area of rain garden plants. During clean up, we also discovered where, exactly, the water enters and exits the basin. On the far end, there is an inlet where stormwater enters from adjacent parking lots and roads. The outlet on the opposite end leads  drains into the sewer. The idea is to catch as much water as possible in the basin before entering the sewer with this very well thought out rain garden that the students have designed. Take a look here at their plant list and site design to see what you think! Keep in mind that, after cleaning up the site, the design has changed a little to accommodate for the above mentioned discoveries.

Lastly, Jenna and I went to the Long Island Sound Citizens Summit in Bridgeport. This was a great opportunity to share what we are doing with members of the community who are working towards a more healthy Long Island Sound. Jenna did a wonderful job on the final panel of the day, 'Taking Action for the Future'. This group of individuals each spoke about what their organization is doing, in their own way, to promote Long Island Sound health. Jenna talked about the OLC program and the LISFF Grant project at NVCC and TRCC and how we are mitigating stormwater via raingardens and meadows.

Those are the updates for now. Make sure to check in on Tuesday, 4/21, when we will be posting pictures of the completed raingarden at NVCC!


Jeremy