Volunteers work to plant a rain garden at Queen's Square West.
A new addition to Queen’s Square West will act as flood mitigation, water filter, and urban beautification all in one.
A new rain garden will collect and absorb water from rainfalls, and put it to good use watering plants, instead of sending it into a storm drain.
Graeme Stewart-Robertson with ACAP Saint John says planting rain gardens can also help manage flood risks, and is part of their new Climate Adaptation Plan.
“Rain gardens in particular is a great, easy way to reduce the amount of run off coming off a property, to filter the runoff, and to also beautify and reduce the load on city infrastructure,” he said in an interview.
I was at Queen’s Square West today where volunteers were busy digging and planting a rain garden! What’s a rain garden? I’ll have a story up later this week all about it. 🌱☔️🌷 pic.twitter.com/8GDnztpR8C
— Danielle McCreadie (@danimccreadie) May 29, 2019
“Rain gardens are designed to allow for the infiltration of water, so the water is entering the soil gradually, but also full of plants that are able to use the water,” he said.
Stewart-Robertson says the plants they used, like black-eyed susans and butterfly grass, are all native to New Brunswick.
The Queen’s Square garden will be home to around 200 different plants.
Stewart-Robertson says this garden will act as a pilot. He hopes to see more rain gardens pop up around the city.
“Its meant to be the start of something. We hope that we start to see rain gardens appear throughout our communities soon, because like I said, one or two is great but the more we see, the more impact and benefit we get back.”
He also hopes to integrate the gardens into the city’s upcoming Neighbourhood Plan in areas where resilience and adaptation projects like rain gardens are needed and can be implemented.
Resources on how to plant your own rain garden can be found online.
