Cascadia College Rain Garden

Special Thanks Go To: Tyson Kemper, CC/UWB facilities manager, for his invaluable help and advice, operation of earth moving equipment, and for donating native plants Gabe Barnes, wetland restoration coordinator, for donating native plants and shrubs Go Natives! plant nursery, for their generous discount on native plants Stephan Classen, for mentoring the project and coordinating financing John VanLeer, for providing funding though the WaterWorks grant Steven T. Jackson, for hours and hours of help excavating the site, installing the irrigation system, and creating the sign, as well as constant feedback and support The Cascadia College BASSP cohort of 2019, especially Selina Maxfield, Evan Schroeder, Hannah Price, and Chelsie Martell, for donating time, work, vehicles, and plant expertise Jodie Galvan, for mentoring, feedback, structure and encouragement Thank you!

3/30/19 - Created rain garden plan 4/12/19 - Dug test Pit 4/16/19 - Called utilities for inspection 4/16/19 - Staked out garden site 4/19/19 - Excavation work party 4/21/19 - Continued excavation 4/24/19 - Continued excavation 4/26/19 - Continued excavation 4/27/19 - Continued excavation 4/29/19 - Filled in site with bioretention soil mix 5/02/19 - Built berm 5/05/19 - Armored inflow 5/08/19 - Planted rain garden 5/17/19 - Mulched, transplanted tufted hair grass, added irrigation system 5/28/19 - Added fence to keep rabbits out

This image is courtesy of Sound Impacts (http://www.soundimpacts.org/projects/list/type/rain-garden)

The garden looks done. There's just one problem though: watering by hand! After noticing tiny fronds of buttercup (a stubborn and common weed in this location) creeping under the berm despite mulching with newspaper, it was decided to mulch the entire garden with wood chips. This will discourage weeds, hold water, and slowly release nutrients as organic matter breaks down. The mulch received from the campus facilities department was wonderfully full of earthworms, which will digest organic material so that it nourishes plants as well as aerate the soil. The irrigation system consists of 1/4" drip line coiled around the inner bowl of the garden and held in place by stakes. The berm is irrigated with 1/2" hose punched at proper intervals with a T-shaped barbed coupling that attaches 1/4" hose on two sides. The 1/4" hose is fitted with either a 1 gal/hr emitter or 1/2 gal/hr emitter, depending on how much moisture that plant prefers, and each plant on

Eighty potted plants were waiting at the site to be staged and planted. The plants that tolerate wet soil were staged in the center. A large rush was transplanted into the very center ( Juncus effusus ). It was transplanted from the rose garden nearby, and was then surrounded by slough sedge grown in the greenhouse. The herbaceous flowering plants great camas and Douglas iris were planted in a ring around those, and then larger shrubs like red osier dogwood were planted further out, including a swamp rose and a hardhack. (For full details about species used, see the Rain Garden Plan page .)

The grass was mulched with newspaper to prevent weeds from creeping into the garden from the lawn. The inflow was armored with rock to prevent soil from eroding into the garden as water flows into it from the drainpipe.