Sunrise Park Rain Garden
Rain Gardens or Bioretention Basins are special kinds of gardens. They are typically planted with native shrubs, wildflowers, and grasses. It has a shallow dip at the center to collect,filter, and soak up rainwater. This rain Garden here at the park collects the water from the parking lot and the surrounding park. Building up the green space. the gardens will naturally trap nutrients and pollutants.
Some benefits of the rain garden at the park are,
- the Rain Garden attracts local birds and butterflys.
- the garden here is a beautiful solution to keeping Rush Creek clean.
Typical rain garden layout:
THE CREATION OF A RAIN GARDEN IN SUNRISE PARK
On Wednesday, April 25, 2012 the City of Hudsonville DPW partnered with the Hudsonville High School Environment classes to create the rain garden at Sunrise Park. Over the years, old concrete slabs, tons of overgrown trees, poison ivy, trash, dead trees, even scrap metal and old vehicle parts had collected in Sunrise Park. The park was cleaned and transformed through a collaborative community effort.
Rain water runoff can be damaging to rivers and creeks if it drains too quickly. Causing erosion or flooding. If the runoff contains pollutants or excess fertilizer, it can harm the riparian ecosystem. Rain are designed to catch excess runoff, filter out any contaminants, and let the water slowly seep away into the waterway.(Rush creek in this case)
Now that we know a bit about rain gardens here are some questions:
1. Take a picture at GZ with you + your GPS.(optional)
2. Why do you think the rain garden was built here? (any near by creeks, rivers, lakes, ect.?)
3. Observe the Garden's basin, is it full of water? if so, why is it full? (recent rain?)
4. Look at the section above on, benefits to having a rain garden. I have given 2 reasons, what is a 3rd reason?
5. Take the short walk on the trail south of the rain garden to Rush Creek. Observe were the rain garden is at the creek. Now look downstream were the runoff from the Street west of the park is. Compare the two observation points. Were is the erosion worse? Explain your choice.
Email me your answers through my profile!
Enjoy!
