The Miracle City Church in Baltimore has invested years in developing a rain garden on Frederick Avenue, an area that has proved vulnerable to storms and flooding in the past.
Rain gardens — designated sites that capture rainwater in shallow, vegetated depressions strategically located at low points in the landscape — provide a range of benefits to their surrounding areas, from replenishing soil health to mitigating flood damage. Usually, rain gardens are planted with native plants, which can withstand fluctuations in land and moisture more easily than other species.
According to WMAR, the Miracle City Church rain garden has been in the works for close to five years, with the last two dedicated to active construction. Residents and experts initially flagged Frederick Avenue's potential storm vulnerability following a large flood in Ellicott City, during which the overwhelming rain affected much of Baltimore and other neighboring cities as well.
"Large portions of [Ellicott City] were flooded with a tremendous amount of rain, rainwater, but that happened also here in Baltimore right on Frederick Avenue, where many people were driven from their homes as a result of the flood," one church agent recounted, per WMAR.
On top of slowing down floods, the project managers hope that the rain garden's establishment will help bar excess nutrients from being carried out to the harbor and disturbing the coastal ecosystem. More generally speaking, rain gardens like these manage nutrients and other chemicals mixed in with water runoff, including pesticides, fertilizers, and other pollutants that pose risks to humans and plants alike in higher concentrations.
The native plants typically installed in rain gardens serve as a natural filtration system by soaking up rainwater when necessary. They're a win-win for the ecosystem and for the communal wallet, since they require little to no external water and maintenance and instead thrive in their natural habitat, drawing in pollinators to help their surroundings thrive as well.
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If you're interested in transforming your home garden with native plants, you can try rewilding your yard or swapping out your homogenous grass lawn for alternatives like clover and buffalo grass. Even a partial replacement — such as for the sake of a rain garden — can go a long way.
Rain gardens "are projects that are designed to deal with storm water during a heavy rainstorm naturally. … Pretty much all of the water that flows off of the parking lot, the driveway will flow into this rain garden. Where it will slow down, filter through native plants, and return back to the water cycle slower and cleaner," explained one of the Miracle City project leaders, per WMAR.
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If you were to switch from a grass lawn to a more natural option, which of these factors would be your primary motivation?
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