Protecting and maintaining the environment can feel like a daunting and impossible task. But did you know there are simple things you can do in your own home and within your community to help preserve the integrity of the natural world? Building a rain garden in your yard is one such task.
Rain gardens are a type of enclosed garden or flower bed structure specifically designed to capture rain as it falls from the sky. Their purpose is to prevent rain and any potential polluted runoff from going into our lakes, streams, and rivers where the slow buildup can harm the wildlife and plants that live there.
According to Susan Bryan, Rain Garden Coordinator for the Washtenaw County Water Commissioner’s Office, “rain should naturally fall onto the ground and get soaked up by the soil. But with the prevalence of concrete driveways, roads and houses, the rainwater has a tendency to runoff into our lakes and rivers.” A rain garden is a solution to that problem.
She states that “They help to keep the rain falling where it should — into the ground.” Bryan helps Ann Arbor community members get educated about building rain gardens of their own and teaches a Master Rain Gardener Certification Course for those who are interested in getting certified.
She also helps to organize an annual awards ceremony for those people in the community who have shown environmental excellence within Washtenaw County. This year, three awards were given out to honor a group of people who either constructed rain gardens in their local communities or helped to maintain and beautify pre-existing ones.
The first award was given to Wines Elementary parent Angie Wolney, a Master Rain Gardener, and 5th grade teacher Nick Mosher. Mosher, along with his 5th grade student council group, took the lead on the project and scheduled workdays during the spring 2024 term where they would come in and pitch in to shovel, wheel in plants and mulch, and place everything in its proper place. Finally, when it was all done the 5th graders who were moving on to middle school, left rocks in the garden that they had painted to honor their elementary school graduation, so a part of their legacy would always remain at their old school.
Another teacher with this initiative, was Sarah Frantom at Tappan Middle School, who is a Master Rain Gardener with previous building experience. She, along with her 6th grade science class, constructed, not one, but four separate rain gardens at the school due to the large number of concrete driveways and pavement. This was an enormous undertaking because of the sheer amount of volume of material used, and she ended up applying for a grant from the county — The Habitat and Community Grant, which helped to pay for the bulk of her materials and supplies.
The final award went to Lynn Olson and Janet Bourgon, who are volunteers at Olson Park in Ann Arbor through the city’s outreach Give 365 program. They oversee the rain garden there (though Bourgon has since recently retired), and make sure that everything is in functioning order.
According to Olson, the garden “drains the parking lot and road rainwater runoff back into the park.” Since there is a vast expanse of concrete at the park, this rain garden performs a mighty job collecting the water in order to provide a significant amount of groundwater to the land.
Olson also spoke of the specific jobs that the volunteers are required to complete, including “eliminating Crown Vetch [a weed] which can overtake a garden.” By weeding the garden on a continual basis, her and Bourgon helped it to function properly.
