The Rain Garden

This is the site of our new Master Gardener/4-H project. As you can see, it has rained, and that pleased us no end, as it showed how our rain garden is going to work.

We entered into a partnership with the Jackson County 4-H kids to do a Native Plant Garden at first. Then I went and took the Rain Water Harvester Specialist training in September, and the rain garden came to be. After watching the water from the downspouts on the building, I knew we had to do something about the water there, before we did anything in this garden. There is a sidewalk all along 3 sides of this garden, and a concrete curb outside that, so piping the water to the storm drain was out of the question. And besides that, RAINWATER IS VALUABLE!!! Let us endeavor to keep it out of our storm drains, thus depleting the soil of valuable nutrients and taking pollutants to the rivers and streams.

What happens in the rain garden is this: Water will be channeled into the reservoir from the downspouts. We are going to use a dry creek bed effect to get the water from Point A to Point B. Water will collect in this reservoir, and will seep into the ground here. As it does, it will be filtered, leaving the nutrients where we need them. We will not be spraying things in this garden, so hopefully, we won't have pollutants to deal with.

We are going to have a unique bench, constructed of rough cedar, along with a cedar fence (low fence), and cedar post arbors and trellis. IF we have room, we are going to have a little bridge over the 'creek'.

This whole area will be planted in native plants, even the reservoir. It is not a pond. We are going to use buffalo grass along the sidewalk edge to keep our dam from eroding.

I just cannot wait to see this finished. Our target date for finishing is February 17, 2007. We can do it.

Other treasures to collect...

Isn't this sweet? This is called 'Heartleaf hibiscus'. It is a native of Texas, grows very easily from seed. The leaves are kind of furry. It seems we grow more and more natives in our gardens now.
This is Jatropha. There are many, many varieties of Jatropha, and I am not sure which botanical this would be, but this is the one we grow in our gardens. It will freeze, but usually will come back from the roots. This one makes a little ornamental tree, blooms most of the summer. I have seen it get to about 10 feet tall, with some protection in winter.

A lot of bio-fuel is being manufactured from some varieties of Jatropha now, I think, and it is a big part of the economy of some Third World countries. Sumatra comes to mind, for some reason.

Foxtail fern is related to the Asparagus fern, only more 'civilized'. It makes little white berries, and does have prickles that hurt if you step on them, but WHY would you be stepping on them?! They will multiply rapidly, and they will get big, so we try to allow for growth when we plant them.
We have very sweet soil, and the ferns seem to like it. I don't know what they would do in a more acidic soil.
Take over the world, probably.

All these things are spectacular when grown with Sweet Potato 'Blackie' or 'Margaurite'.
Also, 'Aztec grass', a form of lirope, is a great companion for any of them them. They are happy in a bit of shade, if necessary.

The prettiest YELLOW flower....

This is THE prettiest, most vibrant flower in the garden. The prettiest yellow one.......

This is a Native of Texas called Esperanza. I think it was Greg Grant who saw the potential and went to work to put this plant in every nursery in Texas. It blooms like this most of the year.

It grows easily from seed or can be grown from cuttings. It will easily reach a height of 8 feet, blooming profusely for most of the way.

There is also an orange Esperanza, but it doesn't have the flash that the yellow one has. There is just something about this yellow flower that shouts "I'm happy! Be happy!".

And who could look at that flower and not be happy?