What is a Rain Garden / Bioretention Area?
Also available in Adobe PDF format A Rain Garden – Bioretention area is a form of a man made ecosystem – a type of constructed bio-filter that is a vital part of the natural hydrological cycle, something we all learned about in elementary school!!! The rain garden collects and stores excess rain water from roofs of buildings or from driveways or parking lots – thus preventing this run-off from polluting our streams and causing flooding and erosion of stream banks. The rain garden uses natural means to store and process and filter and purify this water before infiltrating it into the ground water table below the rain garden bioretention area. This ground water feeds our springs and streams. Why is it important? Infiltration of rain water using rain gardens – bioretention – infiltration swales or trenches or various forms of pervious paving (pervious asphalt paving, pervious concrete paving, gravel pavers, grass pavers, and brick or formed concrete pavers) all help to divert water from o
