Saturday Shorts: 06.14.14 Rain Garden in the Rain

Last week I reported that:

• Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven received a grant from the Greater New Haven Green Fund to educate neighborhood activists about ways to reduce stormwater runoff. Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven staff and volunteers will be digging and installing two rain gardens in their Hudson Street demo lot on Friday under the direction of Michael Dietz, Director of U Conn College of Agriculture and Natural Resource’s NEMO Program

Yesterday, Friday the 13th, was training and installation day. Michael Dietz came. So did a couple dozen volunteers. We listened. We learned. We ate lunch.

It was time to dig the garden.

It started to pour.

It was not about to let up. But we went ahead anyway.

It rained a lot!

Here I am attempting to follow my planting guide before it disintegrates. [We didn't think to laminate it until too late.]

We dug one of the gardens and planted most of the plants the best we could.

The enthusiasm was there, but we had to stop before we added the mulch.

Check out this photo and you will see why.

I was going to do a post on the installation with lots of photos of our beautiful gardens.

That will have to wait for some day soon.

I learned yesterday that New England gets more rain annually than it did in 1895 — 48 inches now vs. 40 inches then. I believe it.

Happy Saturday. The sun’s out today.

Why Saturday Short Subjects? Some readers may recall  being dropped at the movie theater for the Saturday matinee — two action-packed feature films with a series of short subjects (cartoons or short movies, sometimes a serial cliffhanger) sandwiched in between. Often the short subjects were the most memorable, and enjoyable, part of the morning. That explains the name. The reason behind these particular posts is that we are all short on time. My Short Subject posts should not take me as long to write or you as long to read (or try).