May 23, 2015: From Street to Stream, Inglewood Residential Garden Blitz

Posted on Jul 30, 2017 | Leta Van Duin | May 27, 2015

Watch the creation of a shady rain garden in Calgary. Rain gardens are shallow, planted landscape depressions that are designed to capture concentrated flow on a site, usually from roofs via downspouts. 

Keeping water on site rather than rushing to the street means pollutants from roofs (mostly nutrients) feed a planting on land rather than ending up feeding a nuisance algae bloom in our wetlands, lakes and streams. Keeping small flows at home takes pressure off storm sewers in densifying neighbourhoods and reduces erosive weakening of riverbanks. 

This garden features native Sheep's Fescue sod and a combination of native and ornamental perennials and shrubs. It is unusual because the rain garden is shaded by a Box Elder (Manitoba Maple) and a mature spruce.

Open the PDF document with Preview  and hover over the symbol in the left hand corner of the slides, where present, to receive further information about the rain garden construction process.

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