Date: Monday, September 22nd
Time: 8am - 2 PM
Location:
Peninsula K-8 Courtyard (8125 N Emerald St. Portland 97217)
Help the students of Peninsula School install a rain garden at the school courtyard! Volunteer needs include planting and laying mulch. What to bring: weather appropriate attire, closed toed shoes, water bottle, and heavy work gloves! All volunteers will need to sign in at the front office. Please RSVP and contact with any questions: Jocelyn Gary at jgary@pps.net
With the generous support of Portland’s
Community Watershed Stewardship Program, we are installing a large rain garden (aka
Ocean Friendly Garden) in the school’s central courtyard.The project will help protect water quality through expanding rainwater infiltration on the Peninsula School property. Five downspouts servicing 11,400 square feet of roof area are being disconnected from the combined sewer, helping to reduce overflow events. The design of the rain garden has been developed by Peninsula students and teachers, Alan Schmidt, Blossomworks, and Rain City Gardens. The Portland Surfrider Chapter is excited to partner with Peninsula School and the City of Portland on this project!
How it impacts the environment
A rain garden is a planted depression or a hole that allows rainwater
runoff from
impervious urban areas; like roofs, driveways, walkways, parking lots, and compacted lawn areas, the opportunity to be absorbed. This reduces rain runoff by allowing
stormwater to soak into the ground (as opposed to flowing into
storm drains and
surface waters which causes
erosion,
water pollution,
flooding, and diminished
groundwater).They can be designed for specific soils and climates. The purpose of a rain garden is to improve water quality in nearby bodies of water. Rain gardens can cut down on the amount of pollution reaching creeks and streams by up to 30%.
Native plants are recommended for rain gardens because they generally do not require fertilizer and are more tolerant of one’s local climate, soil, and water conditions, and attract local wildlife such as native birds. The plants — a selection of wetland edge vegetation, such as wildflowers, sedges, rushes, ferns, shrubs and small trees — take up excess water flowing into the rain garden. Water filters through soil layers before entering the groundwater system. Root systems enhance infiltration, maintain or even augment soil permeability, provide moisture redistribution, and sustain diverse microbial populations involved in biofiltration. Also, through the process of transpiration, rain garden plants return water vapor to the atmosphere. A more wide-ranging definition covers all the possible elements that can be used to capture, channel, divert, and make the most of the natural rain and snow that falls on a property. The whole garden can become a rain garden, and each component of the whole can become a small-scale rain garden in itself.