Do you like gardening?  Do you love seeing birds and butterflies at flight in your yard?  Creating a rain garden offers therapuetic exercise, attracts wildlife, and helps keep stormwater runoff from overburdening sewer systems--or entering local streams.

Click Here to see a StormwaterPA website video, “Rain Gardens, Saving Streams One Yard At A Time.”

A rain garden is an attractive landscaped area planted with wildflowers and other vegetation (preferably native to the area) that has been designed to collect water that runs off a roof, driveway, or other parts of a property, including area lawns.

Rain gardens are intended to fill with water during storms and slowly filter the water into the ground. Rain gardens are an economical way of dealing with rainfall the way nature intended by infiltrating, slowing down, and reducing the volume of runoff that enters a stormwater system. During heavy rains, they can prevent storm sewer overflows that can end up in our rivers and streams.

Rain gardens not only keep rainwater on your property and out of the sewer system, they offer an attractive alternative to manicured lawns, adding beauty and value to a neighborhood. And, they provide important habitat for birds, butterflies, and other beneficial insects.

For more ideas on how you can protection and restore the environment, visit the iConservePA.org website.

4/15/2013