Three of the five right-of-way rain gardens were finished being planted today. The slopes of the sides were seeded, and curb cuts are being finished up. The next two will be planted, then the gardens will receive a small sod planting to help filter sediment as storm water enters the gardens from the roadway. The white pipes in the gardens are sampling wells to monitor the level of water that enters the garden, and they will each have a pressure transducer in the bottom of those wells to help gather the information. The gardens should all be completed by mid next week!
Excavation, curb cutting, and soil replacing have begun for the right-of-way rain gardens in the Brook Run neighborhood in Westerville. Each garden will have a topsoil/compost mix added to replace the poor soil that was in the right-of-way area. Each rain garden will collect road drainage that normally runs directly to the storm water system that leads to the nearby creek. The rain garden preparation should be completed this week, then planting will start next week.
The City of Westerville, Watershed Organic Lawn Care, and Tamarack Excavating, Inc. are carrying out the curb cuts, soil preparation, and excavation, respectively. The Franklin County Master Gardeners have volunteered to help maintain the gardens after they are finished.
This aspect of the project is funded through a Research Grant from the Ohio Water Development Authority, with The Ohio State University and Franklin Soil and Water Conservation District as the co-applicants. .
As of Friday July 23rd, all of the residential rain gardens are complete. The downspouts were unhooked from the storm water system in the neighborhood and directed into the gardens. Monarchs have already been seen on some of the wildflowers!
The next step in the project is to install the rain gardens in the right-of-way areas throughout the neighborhood. There will be 6 rain gardens that collect storm water runoff from the roadways (which also contains the rest of the downspouts that weren’t added into the residential gardens). Construction should begin in the next couple weeks.
Monitoring has been a challenge, however 3 v-notched weirs will be installed in the main outlet, the cul-de-sac outlet, and the control neighborhood outlet to coincide with the installation of the right-of-way rain gardens. The hope is to establish a definitive reduction of storm water runoff through the use of rain gardens by comparing data from the control neighborhood. Other monitoring tools will be used in the right-of-way gardens, such as pressure transducer and lysimeter-type instrumentation.
As of Saturday, all of the rain gardens in Brook Run have been planted! The landscaper is working on disconnecting the downspouts that lead to each of the gardens. Each grate/riser on the pipe leading into the gardens has a small screw that the homeowner can remove if they need to get into the pipe to clean it out. Each grate/riser is covered with stone for aesthetics, as well as helping to slow and spread out water coming into the garden.
The last baseline data was collected before the disconnections, and all water quantity data moving forward should reflect the reduction in storm water leading to the storm water system. Disconnections will continue today and into next week.
Finally we have some dry soil! Our landscaper has been working this week to till up the rain gardens on the residential properties. Between yesterday and today, several rain gardens have been tilled, leaf compost has been added, and the gardens have been graded. Tilling will continue tomorrow and Thursday, and planting should start this Friday! Several gardens have tarps on them in case it rains – this will help keep the soil dry until they can be tilled. After those gardens have been tilled, the tarps will move to the gardens first in line to be planted.
Also, three rain gardens needed small retaining walls due to the slope on the properties. Those have been completed.
The Central Ohio Rain Garden Initiative is pleased overall with the progress of the Brook Run rain garden installations, however wet weather has been holding up the process. The sod has been removed from the oulined shapes of each of the garden spots, but that soil needs to be tilled up to help offset compaction and give the plants’ roots a little help in getting established. Soil generally should not be worked when too wet, so there has been a slight delay in the installations. Hopefully this weekend will prove to be drier, then the gardens can be tilled and planted. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for dry weather then rain!
Ohio State President, Dr. E. Gordon Gee, visited with FABE students during their poster presentation at the OSU Capstone Design Showcase hosted the College of Engineering on May 28th. Shown in the picture from left of right are Phil Cherosky, Kevin White, President Gee, and Adam Peterca (Ryan Schmid, the fourth group member, could not attend due to a class conflict). This FABE capstone team is collaborating with CORGI and the City of Westerville to design the right-of-way rain gardens to reduce storm water discharges and improve water quality in the Brook Run subdivision.
Click on the link to view the final designs for the right-of-way gardens for the neighborhood project produced by the OSU students – final designs_060110.
Sod removal is complete for almost all the homes in the neighborhood! A couple properties required a stone retention wall due to the slope of the yard, and those are being completed today. Tilling of the gardens will happen Thursday and Friday. Planting will start next week. Thanks to all the residents for their patience and enthusiasm! Thanks to our landscaper (Jim Roberts of Watershed Organic Lawn Care and his crew) for all their hard work!
