“The best thing one can do when it’s raining is let it rain.”  

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet, 1807-1882

Rain is one of the great blessings of the Northeast Ohio region. This May we have enjoyed almost 2” more of it than last year! While much of the country (and the world) experiences chronic droughts that cause dire economic consequences, this area is sitting pretty, with fresh water to spare. It may be hard to appreciate this when roads are flooded and homes are damaged and destroyed. It’s important to keep in mind that many of these problems are the result of human activities like levelling and paving for development. Fortunately, people can be just as ingenious in solving problems as in creating them! And as usual, good design solutions for environmental problems often result when they are modelled on and work with natural systems.

A small-scale but very effective way to reduce flooding from runoff and over-burdened storm sewers is to create a rain garden on your property. There are a number of great resources online for siting, designing and planting a rain garden. Here at the Garden, we are simply trying out some flood-tolerant plants in a chronically wet spot in the Island Garden. We hope that the Monarda, Comfrey, Irises and so on will help take up some of the excess moisture, increase it’s percolation into the ground, and look good doing it!

Posted by Ann McCulloh