Summer 2007: What's Going On in the Rain Gardens?

As of July 2007, the Grayling rain gardens are enjoying all the sunshine they've received over the past few months. Sand coreopsis and black-eyed Susans are filling every basin with bright yellow, while purple coneflowers, asters, orange butterflyweed, blanketflowers, poppies, cosmos, and more are providing other colors. Many late bloomers are still shooting up, promising more beautiful blooms during the rest of the season.

Ongoing maintenance in the gardens includes periodical weeding and watering (over 4,000 gallons each time!) and monitoring for flowers, pests, and invasive species.

Spring 2007 Update

In May of 2007, Huron Pines coordinated a spring cleanup and enhancement of the Grayling rain gardens. A crew of Huron Pines staff and volunteers took out dead leaves, weeds, and trash and planting more plants to help fill in the basins. In the summer, a contractor will come out to water the plants as needed to help them establish.

Rain Garden Basics: Design for Water Quality
In the city of Grayling, all major outputs of stormwater into the Au Sable river are now treated by a best management practice (BMP—a measure or measures that are the most effective at controlling pollution to reach environmental quality goals) like Vortechnic units, detention ponds, or infiltration basins. The rain gardens are infiltration basins: they allow stormwater to collect in them and infiltrate through the ground, mimicking the natural hydrologic flow of the landscape, rather than traveling through a storm sewer. There are 86 rain gardens infiltrating stormwater from over 60 acres of land in a neighborhood south of the river. The gardens, constructed in the city-owned rights-of-way between the sidewalks and the streets in the neighborhood, are many different shapes and sizes but share these common characteristics:

Overall, the basins were engineered to filter at least 80% of the stormwater in the neighborhood, and all signs indicate that they are easily achieving and possibly exceeding that goal.

To learn about how to design a rain garden at your home or business, click here.

Native Plants in the Rain Gardens
In Grayling, the sandy soils mean much faster infiltration than in other parts of the state. In other words, the Grayling rain gardens are not as wet as traditional rain gardens in other places. Here, we use a selection of more drought-tolerant and hardy native species that will survive longer between rain storms. These plants showcase the beauty of their native prairie ecosystems.

For a list of native plants in the Grayling rain gardens, click here.

A Nonnative Addition
In 2007, we added a new type of plant to the rain gardens as a border plant: sedum (autumn joy variety). This plant is a succulent plant, meaning that it has thick, juicy leaves, and it grows well in dry, sandy places with a lot of sun. Sedum is a good choice for the rain gardens because it will add some fall color to the rain gardens and because it is a great example of a plant used in another low impact development technique: green roofs. Sedum is commonly used in green roofs because it can tolerate dry conditions but also absorbs a lot of water and spreads quickly. Green roofs are buildings that have plants growing on their roofs to absorb rainwater so that it doesn’t drain straight into the storm sewer system. They also help reduce heating and cooling costs and lower the amount of heat reflected off the tops of the buildings. Green roofs are becoming more and more popular in cities around the country. For more information, click here.

We Need Your Help!
If you live in the Grayling rain garden neighborhood or if a rain garden has been constructed near where you live, please consider helping out by performing the following maintenance: