Wednesday, May 28, 2008

TV Last night

Did anyone else see Amy Hathaway on TV last night?

Amy, you did a great job talking about the project at Fletcher park. It was pretty complex and you were very eloquent and easy to listen to. I have to admit that I don't remember all of what you said, but I am looking forward to the new pedestrian entrance off of Boylan.

Can you clarify the difference between a rain garden and a water garden?

2 comments:

amy hathaway said...

haha, thanks Traci! Good ol' government access television at its best.

The water garden (or wetland garden) we're building at Fred Fletcher Park will be a fully vegetated area with varying depths of water to provide a variety of habitats not only for the wetland plant species, but also for the aquatic life and insects that will be calling the place home. This is a cousin to your normal, shallow pond, except it's covered with so much vegetation you can barely see the water.

A rain garden (in engineering terms, we call this a bioretention area) is usually much smaller than wetland garden and is also a vegetated area that looks just like a simple flower bed, only the top surface is depressed and it ponds water when it rains. On a normal dry day, the rain garden doesn't have water in it and it looks like a flower bed with mulch.

For both rain gardens and wetland gardens, stormwater runoff drains into these areas and water will pond up with water (usually about 9-12 inches high of water) and then slowly trickle out after it finishes raining. As the stormwater filters through the soil of the rain garden and winds its way through the water garden, pollutants will be removed and the water will naturally get filtered into cleaner water.

Pretty nifty, eh? :)

traci said...

very interesting. Thanks for clarifying!