 Why Create the Rain Garden?
The Binford Rain Garden is designed to create a beautiful outdoor learning space for our students to gain hands-on experience in environmental and life science and to learn about the Chesapeake Bay watershed, the James River sub-watershed, and management and conservation of those watersheds.
In addition, our garden serves as a demonstration project to the surrounding urban community of effective ways to reduce storm water run-off, which is the largest contributor of nonpoint source pollution of the Chesapeake Bay.
What Makes it a "Rain" Garden?
The term "Rain Garden" refers to the fact that the garden will consist of drought resistant plantings native to the Chesapeake Bay watershed and that it will rely on rain and storm water runoff as a primary water source.
Our garden will collect rain water runoff from the parking lot and send it through a natural filtration system of native aquatic plants. The water will then be channeled through a native wetland shrub planting and into a retention pond area surrounded by native trees. Here, the clean water will be allowed to drain into a natural aquifer. This keeps an estimated annual total of 575,000 gallons of rain water from running off the asphalt into the storm drains, which run directly into the James River, and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay.
What Other Features will the Garden Have?
Thanks to Hands on Greater Richmond, we have beautiful stepping stones to use throughout the garden. In addition, thanks to the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, local artist Mary McNeil, and Binford students have created several sculpted and mosaiced benches.
The horticultural program at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College has also collected native herbaceous(perennial) seed for use in the garden.
Four ecosystems are represented in the Binford Rain Garden. These are: upland, swamp (wetlands), estuarine, and coastal water.
We will also be adding signage to thank those who have made the garden possible and to explain the impact of the garden on stormwater runoff to both Binford students and the surrounding community.
Who made the Rain Garden possible?
The Binford PTA is deeply grateful to the Chesapeake Bay Small Watershed Grants program of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for providing the initial grant to make the Binford Rain Garden possible. We are also very grateful to the Virginia Environment Endowment, the Fan District Association, the Fan Townhouse & Garden Club, and the Fan Women's Club for providing additional matching funds. To learn more about the Chesapeake Bay Small Watershed Grants program and Binford's grant, click here.
In addition, the Binford PTA thanks Shelli Jost Brady, President, Alchemy, LLC for her pro bono work in assisting the PTA in late 2006, as we sought and received concept approval from the City of Richmond Urban Design Committee and the City of Richmond Planning Commission.
More recently, we are also extremely grateful to local horticulturalist John Wise for providing his expertise in helping us move from ideas to reality and to Mike Adams of Dominion Equipment for donating the use of equipment for grading and digging to prepare the soil for our planting day on October 18, 2008.
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