RAIN GARDEN MAINTENANCE WORKGROUP

The +400 public rain gardens installed within the City of Stillwater mitigate unchecked drainage from impermeable city surfaces into our local watersheds and waterways following storms and snow melt. Besides their usefulness in protecting water quality in our urban environment, rain gardens play an equally important role in strengthening the natural world’s food web, even in our compromised, over-managed suburban setting. Most of our public rain gardens are at least partially planted to native plant species.

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Native plants offer many benefits for people and the environment, including supporting wildlife, inviting pollinators, improving soil and water quality, and reducing maintenance costs. By acting as stewards of our individual outdoor spaces, we contribute to greater ecological health that connects us all. In the absence of native plants, suburbia is a food desert for native insects, which depend on native plants for food security and the completion of their reproductive cycles.

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“Increasing the percentage of native plants in suburbia is a grassroots solution to the extinction crisis. Our success is up to each one of us individually. We can each make a measurable difference by planting native plants nearby. As gardeners and stewards of our land, we have never been so empowered—and the ecological stakes have never been so high.”

~ Douglas W. Tallamy, Professor of Entomology, University of Delaware and author of Bringing Nature Home.