Page 58 - Sonoma County Gazette January 2017

Gardening in Under Utilized Spaces
Imagine brilliant gardens sprouting from every sidewalk strip, every unused lot, and all those paved places that don’t actually get much tra c. All of these public spaces are ripe opportunities to grow beauty, food, habitat, and most importantly to x our awful stormwater issues!
It’s Time to Plant a Rain Garden
In the urban environment, streetscapes are our public land, our commons. They are abundant – one-third of a typical city’s footprint is pavement for motor vehicles. These streetscapes are usually designed as drains, rapidly ridding a community of such perceived “problems” as rainwater, stormwater, organic matter, fertility, and obstructions to tra c ow. This design often leads to ever- increasing costs for importation of water, ood control, pollution control, heat- island abatement, climate-change mitigation, and health problems.
Historically, homes and streets were intentionally designed to move as much stormwater into a storm drain system as fast as possible. This approach was meant to protect foundations and keep the streets safer during storms. However, as our cities and towns have grown larger, this “old school” method has had some unintended consequences, resulting in damage to our creeks, waterways, the Russian River, and hazards to our communities.
But bit by bit, we can prevent these problems with thoughtful gardening in our public right of ways, which can have a surprisingly large e ect on the overall watershed because of their proximity to the roads and impermeable surfaces that cause the worst stormwater issues. A simple shift in perception and design can enable us to see and utilize rainwater, stormwater, organic matter, fertility, and even some obstructions to tra c ow as free, local resources. These resources can be passively harvested to enhance local water supplies, control ooding, lter pollutants, grow cool-islands, mitigate the e ects of climate change, and improve health – while generating more resources and more life. The key is to see and enhance the free abundance that we already have, in a way that transforms more of our built systems into living systems that can regenerate themselves and our communities.
The old school method causes the water to move very quickly and in great amounts. Fast-moving water can sometimes overwhelm the storm drains and creeks and cause local ooding. In large storms, it makes the Russian River rise faster and higher which can cause widespread ooding. Additionally, water in our storm drains ows straight into our creeks and river without ever being treated. Consequently, stormwater pollution gathered from driveways, walkways, rooftops can damage the salmon and steelhead sheries that are dependent on clean water.
On Tuesday, January 24th from 6:30pm-8:30pm Daily Acts will be hosting Brad Lancaster, and Brock Dolman in Petaluma for a dynamic talk titled ‘Regenerative Rights-of-Way: Planting and Stewarding Stormwater to Enliven Oases in our Built Environment’. In this informative presentation, Brad Lancaster, author of the seminal ‘Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond’, will share how to re-design our community commons & streetscapes to help us shift from major stormwater problems to regenerative rainwater solutions. Brock Dolman, Program Director of The Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, will help to bring this topic to a local scale, and will provide adaptive strategies for our dynamically changing planet.
Rain gardens are one of the easiest methods and they are being used more and more by landscape architects and gardeners. A rain garden captures the water owing o our homes and driveways and allows it to soak into the ground instead of letting it ow to a storm drain and directly to our river. Rain gardens are part of a “new school” method for managing stormwater called “low impact development” or LID. Rain gardens, like many other LID features, gather, hold, lter, and slow stormwater runo .
Brad Lancaster is a dynamic teacher, consultant, and designer of regenerative systems that sustainably enhance local resources and our global potential. He is the author of the award-winning, best-selling book series ‘Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond’; the website, HarvestingRainwater.com; and its ‘Drops in a Bucket’ Blog.
Rain gardens are located in a place in your yard where they can gather rainwater from your roof, patio and/or driveway. They are dug extra deep and often have gravel at the bottom. Soil is placed on top of the gravel and then landscaped with plants that can tolerate saturated soils and even short periods of standing water while keeping the soil in place. Then, the rain water captured at the bottom of the rain garden can to soak into the ground after the storm has passed. This helps lter out some pollutants and slows the ow of stormwater to our river.
Brad has taught throughout North America as well as in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and Australia. His hometown projects have included working with the City of Tucson and other municipalities to legalize, incentivize, and provide guidance on water-harvesting systems, demonstration sites, and policy. He has likewise collaborated with state agencies to promote practices that transform costly local “wastes” into free local resources. Brad’s aim is always to boost communities’ true health and wealth by using simple overlapping strategies to augment the region’s hydrology, ecosystems, and economies – living systems upon which we depend.
Another easy LID feature that a homeowner can implement is to disconnect the rooftop downspouts that drain directly onto hardscape, like your driveway or patio, and reroute the drainage to any vegetated area. Some runo will in ltrate into the ground and be taken up by vegetation in your yard. Some
of the water will be ltered and discharged more slowly into the storm drain system. If you send this water to a rain garden, you can avoid adverse e ects to your foundation or protect steep hillside slopes by locating the rain garden away from these features.
Fortunately, there are many options for reducing the negative e ects our homes have on our river.
Brad Lancaster, and Brock Dolman talk attendance is $10 (but
no one will be turned away for lack of funds). The location is to be determined but save your seat by registering online at dailyacts.org/events, and we will keep you up to date with information. Hope to see you there! Let us gardeners save our watersheds.
Pervious or porous pavers for walkways, patios, parking areas and driveways are also an LID design option. Pervious pavers allow stormwater to in ltrate into the soil through gaps intentionally left between paver
bricks or stones. Porous pavers allow for stormwater to in ltrate into the soil through holes or perforations in the pavers.
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When we “slow the ow” of stormwater, we protect stream banks from being eroded by an excessive volume of fast moving water. When we allow soils and plants to lter stormwater, we reduce the amount
of sediment and pollutants entering water ways. When we in ltrate more of our stormwater, we help replenish groundwater and allow a more natural water cycle to occur.
In high traffic areas, such as Bayer Farm & Garden Park in Santa Rosa, fine gravel between pavers allows water to penetrate the earth
RAIN GARDEN cont’d on page 59