Some of my favorite native plants come from wetlands and thrive in intermittently wet soil. The water runoff from your roof’s downspout creates an opportunity to plant some of the beautiful natives that are adapted to the fluctuating levels of moisture at a drainpipe. We can change this, and you, as an individual can start at your downspout. Heavy rain can overwhelm municipal systems, mixing rainwater with sewage and causing human waste to flow into streams and coastlines.
This tightly channeled water, tainted with pollutants, eventually discharges into natural streams with explosive force. Our cities and suburbs are much less absorbent because we replace the native vegetation with roofs, pavement and minimal vegetation and treat rainwater as a waste product to be quickly diverted into culverts and underground pipes.
Forests and meadows are able to absorb massive amounts of rainfall, slowing the water’s path into streams and rivers, filtering out pollutants, recharging groundwater, cleaning our air and moderating temperatures. The torrential downpour that the Northeast experienced at the end of September was a clear reminder that we need to make our landscapes more absorbent of precipitation. A Rain Garden at Your Downspout by Heather McCargo