Ever wonder what became of the rain garden we began installing to celebrate our 20th Anniversary?
It didn't look like much at the beginning...
Since its completion in May, the Pinnacle rain garden has gone from a pile of rubble to a lush oasis, flourishing in the sun and shade of our lot off of the back alley.
While the main purpose of a rain garden is to absorb and filter rain water that runs off of an impervious surface (or in this case, our office's parking area), rain gardens also successfully attract native wildlife like birds, bees, butterflies and more!
Providing native pollinators like the Honey Bee in the picture below with food and shelter by planting native species in our gardens is a great (and beautiful!) way to help conserve the health of our local watersheds.
So why not start a rain garden of your own? Here's a list of some of the species we chose to put in our rain garden to help plant some seeds of inspiration!
- Iris Versicolor, also known as the Blue Flag, can be found in Northeastern wetlands. Though poisonous, Native Americans would use small amounts as a cathartic and diuretic.
- Purple Coneflower, also known as the Echinacea Purpurea, is an extremely popular herbal remedy used for wounds, burns and insect bites.
- The popular garden plant, Hibiscus Moscheutos is loved by gardeners as well as nectar-feeders and birds due to the its high pollen load.
- Blue False Indigo is the most noticeable species in the rain garden as it can grow up to nearly 4 feet tall!
- Volunteer Cherry Tomatos? Ok, we didn't plant these and have no idea how they got here but we're not mad about it! When a plant shows up and starts flowering or fruiting without having been planted by the gardener, it's called a volunteer. We volunteer these tomatoes for caprese! Yum!