Housing
Why Every City Should Be Planting Rain Gardens
They save lots of money - and that's just their most obvious benefit.
Andy Wible’s backyard in Washington, D.C.’s Petworth neighborhood doesn’t look much like a sewerage drain. But his Bayberry, Bee Balm, Iris and Golden Ragwort plants get the job done – and then some. Dug 30 inches* down and filled with a mixture of sand, topsoil and compost, Wible's rain garden draws raindrops tumbling off the roof deep into the soil, purifying them and recharging the groundwater.
The backyard patch is part of RiverSmart Washington, a new network of rain gardens that seek to mimic a natural ecosystem and end the scourge of sewerage overflows that have long befouled the country’s waterways.