With the flooding problem a number of us deal with, including myself, I thought that this might be an excellent way to help alleviate the flooding in our yards and create a much more colorful place to live. I did a bit of research on this yesterday and it is a relatively inexpensive, decorative way to deal with flooding and help the environment at the same time.

There's an excellent guide to this at www.vacd.org/winooski/winooski_raingarden.shtml.

I'm posting this information with permission from the Cheshire County Conservation District.

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Do you love gardening and do you care about the environment? The Cheshire County Conservation District and the City of Keene invite you to come learn about how you can protect your rivers and lakes through gardening on Saturday, May 10 from 9am-Noon at the Keene Public Library. At this workshop you will learn about rain gardens. These gardens are designed with a depressed bowl shaped planting bed to allow stormwater runoff from your roof, walk, driveway or road to slowly soak into the ground and be cleaned by the natural processes of plants, soils and microbes.

At this workshop Emma Melvin, of UVM Cooperative Extension’s Lake Champlain Sea Grant Program, will teach you how these gardens function, how to design a rain garden and how to install a rain garden. There will be a hands-on portion of the workshop where we walk you through the design process of an actual garden. The workshop is free and open to the public.

To register for this workshop please contact the Cheshire County Conservation District at (603) 756-2988 ext.116 or amanda.costello@nh.nacdnet.net.