(gentle upbeat music) - Welcome to Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer.

I'm your host, Kim Todd, and on Digging Deeper we have in-depth discussions with extension and industry experts about those important landscape topics.

Tonight, we're gonna be talking about rain gardens and city improvement with Kelly Feehan.

And of course, Kelly is well known to all of us in the Backyard Farmer world.

Kelly, thanks for driving down a little early on this very, very hot day.

- Good place to be, but a little bit hot under cameras, but thanks for inviting me.

- Exactly, well and last year on Digging Deeper you did a segment on "what is" a rain garden.

- Right.

- Because people get confused about rain garden, bioswale, pond, whatever.

- That's right.

- So tonight we're going to talk more about what you've accomplished, what has worked, what hasn't worked with- sounds like a multitudinous quantity of rain gardens in Columbus and kind of your area of the state.

- Right.

- So start off with one that you want to talk about and tell us how it's been working.

- Okay, a couple of rain gardens I'd really like to talk about, are two that we have done in Columbus that are demonstration rain gardens.

And the first one was the first one I was involved with installing, and I'm very proud of it.

I had a lot of help with it, but it's doing great.

And this was one that we put in our park, Pawnee Park in Columbus, our main park, and it's installed next to a Memorial Stadium, which is our football and track field, so it's a high traffic area which is a good place for a demonstration rain garden where you want to do some public education.

Our whole goal with installing that was to do public education and teach people, show them what a rain garden is.

We have signage there that teaches them, tells them what a rain garden is and describes it.

So we did this project, it was part of a grant.

UNL had a stormwater team and we obtained a USDA NIFA grant, and this was one of the things that we did.

And we partnered with the city of Columbus because, as we know or most people know, our city's 20,000 or larger population have to do some storm water mitigation.

So that's slowing down that storm rainwater runoff from the community, pollutants that might be in it.

And part of what they have to do is public education and outreach, so they collaborated with us on that.

So they, in part, to do some public education and outreach, we had the same goal.

We wanted to do education, they want to do education.

So that was the main reason for installing that rain garden.

- How big is that one?

It's still in existence right?

- Yes, it is.

It's about 300 square feet, maybe a little less.

It's maybe about 30 feet long and 10 feet a little wider, so about 300 square feet.

- So, you know, people think in terms of rain gardens either being overwhelmingly large or little dinky puddles.

- Right.

- And with the ones that you've been working with, that one as an example, is that an ideal size?

Is that too much for a lot of people?

Did it actually accomplish the kind of capture and release that you really were after on that one?

- Yes.

I would say for a demonstration rain garden it was the ideal size.

It could have been a lot larger in this particular site.

It served its purpose of education and we were trying to show homeowners what they could do in their own landscapes.

So obviously in a residential landscape or a business landscape, you don't want it to be too large or too overwhelming.

The bottom line of what dictates size is, you know, how much water is running into it during a rainstorm, so you kind of have to measure the square footage of the roof or the downspouts that are coming to it.

Or if there's an upslope, you have to measure that.

So size and depth is dictated by that and if you want a smaller rain garden then you know, you don't want as much- you know, maybe one downspout.

In this particular case, there's two downspouts off that fairly large roof that are flowing into it.

And Pawnee Park, there's really sandy soil so drainage is very important, because a good rain garden- that rainwater is going to be gone in 48 hours or less.

Or you can have issues with plants, maybe mosquito breeding, so drainage is important.

And in this case it was very sandy soil so we actually- and we went deeper, we went almost three feet deep- two and a half to three feet deep, which you would not do probably in most homes or businesses.

- Right.

That's a lot of digging, especially if it's by hand.

- It is.

And we add all the way good collaboration when we installed this, the city of Columbus.

We had the Assistant City Engineer, a couple of park department people, Katie Bacara, who as we know, is an extension educator who does a lot with water quality, and myself, and a couple of grad students.

And in this particular case, we hand dug everything and installed it.

And it worked because it was a little bit smaller size and sandy soil.

- So how old is that one, give or take?

- We installed it in 2009.

- So you have a good track record with the plants in particula.

- Yes.

- Are there certain plants that you wish you had never unleashed in the rain garden?

- Not in this one.

This rain garden, like I said, it's been so easy that- you do have issues with rain gardens, I won't say you won't.

And we did have one issue with the other one I'll talk about but we've been really lucky with this one.

And I think a lot of it was because it does drain so well and we kept it a smaller size that we were able to take care of.

And my Master Gardener Volunteers actually help maintain and take care of this garden but I'll tell you the plants that I love in it!

Joe-Pye, little Joe-Pye weed, that's a standard in rain gardens and it does great and loaded with pollinators when it's blooming in the Fall.

I want to say Tithonia but Chelone!

I keep thinking Tithonia, we don't have Tithonia in there.

"Hotlips" Turtlehead, or Chelone, has done very well in there.

And let's see what else we have... up on the top of the berms- those are kind of on the bottom of the berms- even silver- rise- big... what am I trying to say?

"Sunrise" Big Bluestem has done very well in there and that's kind of on the bottom.

A plant that failed was "Ice Dance" Carex and Carex is a standard to put on the bottom of rain gardens and keep putting them on the bottom of rain gardens because they do great.

But in our case, we did not have any luck with "Ice Dance" Carex.

It's a variegated one and I haven't seen a lot of it around so I'm wondering if people just aren't having success with that one.

- You know, that's one that we actually used on campus, at least out here, a bit.

And when I was in private practice for a little bit, we used it a lot but winter hardiness just doesn't seem to be.

And we have so many good native sedges even though they're not very variegated.

- Yeah, I would replace it with maybe Palm Sedge or Brown Fox Sedge.

Those are currently my favorites, but there's many others.

Do you have any favorites right now?

- Well, I like Fox and I like Sprengelii, which is - I cannot remember of course, the common name of it.

The Palm Sedge in our Backyard Farmer garden has become too happy.

- Yes, yes.

- It has seeded itself.

- It can do that.

- It's spread into the crowns of other plants but you know, one of the things that that I'll ask you is, so you're you're using the plants as opposed to mulch or do you still mulch this one?

How do you do the weed control?

- We still mulch it.

Not a lot.

I mean, I think we've added mulch- since 2009 we've added mulch a couple of times and we did lose some plants up on the top of the berm.

So our Rudbeckia is doing great on the top of the berm, we have a "Ruby Stella" Daylily that's doing great.

For our spring blooming we have Baptisia Minor.

We have some Prairie Dropseed which is my favorite ornamental grass.

And those are doing the best.

We lost Stephanie.

- Oh... - What am... Daphne?

Not Daphne, but Dahlia.

- Dahlia.

- We lost that and I don't know why, it should have done quite well but we lost it.

We replaced it with Pasch flower and that's doing well.

So, but we, because we lose plants now and then, in those bare areas, we're still using some mulch.

- All right.

And so it sounds also like, you know, you deliberately chose plants for multi-season interest.

- Right.

- Do you allow them to stand or does the city allow them to stand over the winter?

- Yes.

- Collect trash, collect leaves?

- Yep.

They stand all winter and you're right, they do collect leaves and trash.

And that's one thing my Master Gardeners will help with is they'll just drive by every now and then and maybe pick out trash that are in there.

And then in the spring, that's a main job, cutting all those plans back and getting out those excess leaves.

- So it sounds really like, especially for this one to start with, before you talk about the next one, that there's almost mostly positive reaction to it.

- Yes.

- Very little negative?

- Right.

We had that sign in there.

You know, people are there during the track season.

People are there during football, all summer long people who use that track for running and whatnot.

So we do get positive feedback on it.

I have people ask about it every now and then.

We had one really neat story here, it's when we first installed it, We had like a two inch rain shortly thereafter so the park department person drove by it and it had like two feet of water in it.

And he was a little nervous and all the mulch was floating and he came back the next morning and the water was gone.

- Yeah.

- And the mulch had all nicely gone back into place because again, we had just installed it so we had quite a bit- a lot more mulch than we do now.

- Sure, yeah.

- 30 feet away, there was a regular landscape bed and all the mulch had floated out onto the sidewalk.

So he had to get employees to shovel it back in and he said "Boy", he says, "I'm going to build all my gardens this way, because if it works that way."

So that's just kind of a cute story, but it's kind of an important one for the maintenance.

And I mentioned removing the leaves, we don't remove all the leaves.

We use a lot of the leaves for mulch but this particular garden collects a little bit more leaves than we need.

- Yup.

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All right, Kelly, you talked about a second rain garden so which one is that?

- Okay the other one we have is that our our local Chamber of Commerce office in Columbus and they built a brand new office.

And so the president at that time had just asked me for some suggestions on landscaping.

And I mentioned a water-wise landscape cause that's kind of a trend and a good thing to do.

And he was open- one component of the entire landscape was the rain garden, and was open to that.

And that one is maybe a little larger about 900 square feet.

And it's located almost next to an outdoor patio area.

So in this situation, we wanted this one to be the prettiest.

The other one is in high traffic area, so we wanted that to be pretty too.

Rain gardens don't have to be beautiful to be functional but it does help people to accept them.

And depending on where they're growing, and it is pretty.

It's very pretty in the spring.

We have the Baptisia Minor.

We have 'Tor' Birchleaf Spirea up on top and up again that Prairie Dropseed and some Pasch Flower.

So we have very good spring color and our Joe-Pye weed, or Swamp Milkweed.

We have a lot of color in the Fall, but for some reason we can't get our summer bloomers to bloom.

Our "Roseanne" Hearty Geranium does great in the other rain garden, I hadn't mentioned it.

But it won't establish.

It's actually- we're trying to grow it next to where they're putting a little brick area where you can buy bricks with names on them and so on.

And I think there might be an issue there.

So we need to bring in some new soil and maybe that would help but otherwise again, Palm Sedge, you're right, it's kind of taking over the bottom of the garden, but it adds color.

- So I assume, is this a newer construction site?

So this soil is not the good sandy drainage to start with- - No, it is- it was brand new construction so we were very concerned about soil compaction because drainage is so important for a rain garden.

So we did the percolation test and it was okay.

We, again, we collaborated, it was again the Chamber of Office Extension, Nebraska statewide Arboretum.

We obtained a grant from them to do this water wise landscape.

City Offices helped us again and even the landscapers.

We had to work, they had to work with us because we wanted to install a rain garden last.

- Sure.

- We didn't want sediment from bare soil and whatnot going in there.

So it was great partnership of everybody working together.

So we got a backhoe from the city because we knew with new construction, there could be some compaction issues and the percolation tests that it would be great.

And then everything was done.

We were ready to install and it always had six inches of water in it.

- Oh dear.

- And came to find out they had just installed new sod.

And which- you need to irrigate sod to get it rooted down.

And we found out that one of the heads was hitting just the rain garden.

We called up the irrigation person and he fixed that head and it dried out in a week, week and a half, and we were able to install it.

- Well, you know, and that's an interesting lesson because people don't think- like in the weather we're in right now, it's so dry.

- Right.

- And so windy and so hot that even rain garden plants potentially are going to need some irrigation to keep them alive.

- Right.

Yeah.

And normally if you're getting rain, once in a while, a lot of rain gardens do not need a lot of irrigation but you're right.

You're right.

Dry spells, hot weather.

They might need some supplemental watering.

- Yeah.

So, you know, just looking at what you've done with those two rain gardens, it appears that they were designed more to be...

I know you said residential, but a little more managed or a little more contained or controlled than a "meadow" sort of a rain garden.

Was that intentional?

- Yes.

It was because they were demonstration gardens.

We wanted them something that a homeowner could put in their own landscape.

- Right.

- We, we have to remind people with the other one that you can't go through two and a half, three feet deep, and we explain why we did that in this particular situation.

- Right.

Well, and I assume too, that, you know one of the things that people are a little nervous about with something like that is the appearance of "wildness".

- Yes.

- So if it, you know, you've chosen plants that will work but also plants that appear as though they belong in an urban setting.

- Right.

- Even though you chose a lot of different natives.

- Yes.

Yeah.

Mostly natives.

And if you look at a lot of the rain garden lists that are out there, there's a lot of plants that can get huge.

So you really, you know, most residential rain gardens are going to be a little bit smaller, right?

So you need to choose plants accordingly - Right.

Our biggest one- well, we have some huge shrubs in the bottom of ours on campus here but our biggest perennial is "Herbstsonne" Golden Glow.

And when she's in flower she can be eight feet tall, which is fabulous if you want something eight feet tall and yellow.

- Some rain- some large rain gardens need that.

- Right.

Right.

- Not most residential ones.

- Right.

I think one final question, Kelly, how good are your rain gardens at attracting pollinators?

And does that worry people to see buzzing insects in the public spaces?

- They are great at attracting the pollinators.

And I mean, they're just a buzz, especially in the Fall but early in the Spring as well.

And no, I haven't had anybody complain about it.

I think there's a lot of pollinator education going out there that are people starting to appreciate it and starting to recognize how important it is.

But yeah, rain gardens are great pollinators gardens.

- And you know, we've had people ask us about creating a puddling area for butterflies.

Well, if you've got a rain garden, you've got a big puddling area.

- Yep, a big puddling area and leave a little bare soil too because they need to get those minerals from their soil.

- One final question really and that is, weed control- is with the mulch and hoe-hoe-hoe?

- Yes.

Yep.

It is.

And Master Gardener Volunteers, thank goodness.

Since it's an educational component, we do use our Master Gardener Volunteers and they're small enough that a mulch in hand hoeing keeps it in.

- Alright.

So one little piece of advice or last piece of advice from you to people who want to try one or start one or go see one?

- Well, if you're in the Columbus area, you know, go to the Columbus Chamber of Commerce office or even Memorial Stadium.

I have to say Memorial Stadiums is a little bit more of a favorite of mine, but the other one's pretty too.

And I think you find rain gardens all over the place.

People- when I start pointing out bio retention, there's a garden or a rain garden, people say "I see that".

You known just downtown Lincoln has a lot of it, and they start to recognize it.

But just give it a try, it's a great way to grow a garden.

- Excellent start right?

And then you manage the water, the plants, the insects and everything else all at the same time.

Well, thanks.

And that is all the time we have for Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer.

Kelly, thanks for coming in and talking about it.

We'll be back next time with another in-depth discussion.

Do be sure to watch Backyard Farmer live, every Thursday at 7:00 PM central on Nebraska Public Media.

Thanks for Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer.

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