Success Story: A Rain Garden for Vernon Park

At Vernon Park in Philadelphia, a group of volunteers has built a functioning rain garden with donated plants and equipment. Lead by the Tookany/Tackony-Frankford Watershed Partnership, the project leveraged support from municipal agencies, community advisers, and a large group of committed volunteers. 


The garden is designed to capture the “first inch” of runoff from the roof of one of the park’s large buildings (seen in the background below). Water from the roof drains is directed into simple swales, which carry water directly into the rain garden. There the water is held back from entering the storm sewer, and can slowly infiltrate into the ground.  

Volunteers graded the rain garden and planted over 400 plugs of fox sedge, bee balm, turtlehead, and ferns, plus small containers of bleeding heart, ironweed, cardinal flower, dogwood, redbud, blueberry, hydrangea, and more. These plants will grow to fill in the rain garden with a lush cluster of flowering native plants that improve habitat and aesthetics in the park. At a fairly low cost to the community, this garden benefits the neighborhood, the city, and the downstream watershed.

Could a project like this happen in the Saugatuck Watershed? What examples can we share of similar local work?





Before planting





Volunteer gardeners at work (Photos ©AKRF, 2011)