Save the Nation, Garden Today!

I landed on this page after following a trail of informational links that began with an outdoor grill ad. Strange? That's the internet for you.

Its about gardening. Specifically, It's about a Rain garden Project in Minnesota, USA. The community uses these gardens to reduce run-offs into their scenic lake and river. While this project focuses on preventing contamination from sediments and pollutants, it did indicate a reduction in the volume of water. The test results show that run-offs diminished by 90%. That's a lot of water that does not need to go into the drain system. In short, its water that will not contribute to the kind of flooding we had recently.

You'd think that such a simple solution would have found its way here. No suck luck. We've been concentrating on plastering the land with concrete and asphalt. Even the decorative plants along the roads are encased in concrete boxes. And I'm not wondering. I've said it before - public works has a nasty reputation. Big contracts = big player = big money. From the looks of it, the rain garden project favors small independent contractors with a cheaper organic approach.

This one makes it into my list for "Nice to have, unlikely to get".