#stormwater

How to make the most out of the flooding in Auckland NZ

From sterile gravel lot to lush rain-fed paradise!

How a single rain garden sparked the on-going transformation of a once sterile office complex experiencing costly flooding into a growing oasis that harvests onsite rain and massive stormwater flows from neighboring properties in a way that controls flooding, recharges the aquifer, and naturally cleans the water and soils with edible life.

With rocky soil, sloped yards, and heavy seasonal rains, smart landscaping can make a difference. One simple and eco-friendly solution is the rain garden. It's a beautiful, low-maintenance feature that protects your yard and supports the environment. A rain garden isn’t just about looks. It’s a shallow, planted area designed to collect and absorb rainwater runoff. It helps filter pollutants, reduce erosion, and provides food and shelter for birds, bees, and butterflies. It’s a great way to manage water while adding life and beauty to your outdoor space.

What Is a Rain Garden?

A rain garden is a shallow area of ground or dip that receives run-off from roofs and other hard surfaces and allows it to soak into the ground. It is planted with plants that can stand waterlogging for up to 48 hours at a time. More drought-tolerant plants are used towards the edges. Rain gardens can also help filter out pollutants in runoff and provide food and shelter for butterflies, song birds, and other wildlife (Rain gardens, n.d. & Soak Up the Rain: Rain Gardens, 2025).

(Illustration by Sanny van Loon in the blog “Eight Ways to Make Your Yard More Environmentally Friendly” by Susannah Herrada published on May 04, 2018)

A rain garden is not a water garden. Nor is it a pond or a wetland. Conversely, a rain garden is dry most of the time. It typically holds water only during and following a rainfall event. Because rain gardens will drain within 12-48 hours, they prevent the breeding of mosquitoes (All About Rain Gardens, n.d.).

How Does a Rain Garden Manage Water Runoff?

(by Rain Garden Network)

🌱 Captures Rainwater at the Source

Rain gardens are typically placed near downspouts, driveways, or other areas where water flows after a storm. By capturing clean rainwater from these areas and diverting it into a great looking rain garden where it can slowly soak into the ground, filter contaminants, and keep quantities of clean water from going down the sewer system you’ll have a great looking garden that puts water in its place. As water enters the garden, the shallow basin slows it down, reducing the risk of flash flooding and erosion.

🌱 Filters Pollutants Naturally

A rain garden can mimic the natural absorption and pollutant removal activities of a forest, or a meadow or a prairie and can absorb runoff more efficiently, sometimes as much as 30% – 40% more than a standard lawn. As water soaks into the soil, layers of sand, compost, and native plant roots filter out pollutants like oil, pesticides, fertilizers, and sediment. This protects nearby rivers, lakes, and groundwater, essential for properties near Lake Huron or the Niagara Escarpment.

🌱 Promotes Groundwater Recharge

Groundwater Foundation notes that rain gardens collect rainwater runoff, allowing the water to be filtered by vegetation and percolate into the soil recharging groundwater aquifers and reducing strain on municipal stormwater systems. These processes filter out pollutants. This is especially valuable in Bruce County’s rural areas, where well water and natural springs are primary sources of freshwater.

By preventing stormwater runoff – water from rain and melting snow that does not soak into the ground – we can prevent water pollution, erosion, habitat degradation and more. Runoff is powerful. It can erode loose material like sand and soil, pick up toxins like pesticides, and liquefy substances like road salt. These harmful materials move with the runoff into our scenic brooks, flowing streams and rivers, and favorite ponds and lakes where they smother habitats, poison aquatic critters and cause water pollution (Rain Gardens: A Beautiful Solution to Stormwater Runoff, 2020).

How Do Rain Gardens Support Local Wildlife?

(by Bluestem Gardening & Clemson Cooperative Extension Home & Garden Information Center)

🌱 Habitat for Pollinators

As native plants establish their roots, they attract a diverse array of pollinators, including bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. The varying water levels in your garden create distinct microhabitats, from shallow puddles perfect for birds to moist soil where beneficial insects thrive (Barbara, 2025). In Bruce County, native plants like swamp milkweed, purple coneflower, and joe-pye weed are magnets for these pollinators that are essential for healthy gardens and farms across the region.

🌱 Shelter for Small Creatures

Rain gardens provide additional height to a landscape that helps smaller species of wildlife like anoles or frogs avoid predators. Foliage, dead leaves, stems, and branches can act as a form of cover or shelter for wildlife. Stems of native plants also provide crucial wintering and nesting habitats for many of our native solitary pollinator species, like mason bees. Some grasses that can thrive in a rain garden can provide nesting materials for birds to make their nests (Lunt et al., 2025). Also, dense plantings and wet-dry cycles attract frogs, dragonflies, songbirds, and beneficial insects. These creatures help control pests naturally and contribute to a balanced ecosystem.

🌱 Food Sources Year-Round

Many of the native plants that are well adapted to rain gardens are flowering species that provide nectar for pollinators, and they also act as host species for numerous Lepidoptera species (butterflies and moths). In addition, when these flowers go to seed, they act as a food source (Lunt et al., 2025). Birds feed on seed heads in fall, butterflies rely on nectar in summer, and larvae use specific native plants as host species.

Why It Matters in Bruce County?

Rain gardens are especially helpful in Bruce County, where natural areas and new developments often share the same space. With more heavy rain happening due to climate change, it’s important to manage water runoff in a way that’s good for the land. Rain gardens do just that while also helping pollinators and protecting local wildlife. They filter water, reduce flooding, and support the natural beauty of the Bruce Peninsula. If you're looking to improve your outdoor space, AND-ROD Construction Landscaping is a trusted choice for Bruce County’s landscaping services, offering eco-friendly garden and landscape solutions that suit your property.

Citations:

Barbara. (2025, July 5). How a rain garden can transform your permaculture paradise. Bluestem Gardening. https://bluestem.ca/specialized-gardening-methods/how-a-rain-garden-can-transform-your-permaculture-paradise/

Loon, SV. (2018). box7-994x551.jpg. Washingtonian. https://www.washingtonian.com/2018/05/04/rain-garden/

Lunt, S., Maher, M., Porzelt, S. (2025, June 24). Rain Gardens as Wildlife Habitat | Home & Garden Information Center. Home & Garden Information Center. https://hgic.clemson.edu/rain-gardens-as-wildlife-habitat/

May 2020: Rain Gardens: A Beautiful Solution to stormwater runoff. (n.d.). NH Department of Environmental Services. https://www.des.nh.gov/news-and-media/blog/may-2020-rain-gardens-beautiful-solution-stormwater-runoff

Rain Garden network. (n.d.). Rain Garden Network. https://raingardennetwork.com/ Rain gardens / RHS. (n.d.). Royal Horticultural Society. https://www.rhs.org.uk/garden-features/rain-gardens

Soak Up the Rain: Rain Gardens | US EPA. (2025, February 3). US EPA. https://www.epa.gov/soakuptherain/soak-rain-rain-gardens

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

Every Friday afternoon, the Kingsland Wildflower Green Roof opens its doors to the local community. Tall grass and brightly-colored flowers greet visitors after their four-floor trek to the top of the building—a green oasis in Brooklyn, surrounded on all sides by heavy industrial activity.

Just across the street, the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant’s gargantuan “digester eggs” treat millions of gallons of sewage every day. 

Despite the visual incongruity of this scene, both the garden and the treatment plant work to stop contaminated water from flowing into the city’s waterways during heavy rainfall. 

The rooftop garden sits on a building on Kingsland Avenue owned by the production company Broadway Stages. Two well-tended sections contain a variety of plants and flowers native to the area, like strawberries and camassias. A garden on a lower roof is made up largely of sedum, a small succulent-type plant. 

The garden is under the purview of the Newtown Creek Alliance, a local organization that works to improve the environment around the creek, which is a tributary of the East River and forms the border between Brooklyn and Queens. 

Seven years ago, the green roof was born of a partnership between the Newtown Creek Alliance, the NYC Bird Alliance, formerly NYC Audubon, Broadway Stages and Alive Structures, a landscaping firm that specializes in roof gardens. The installation was funded by the Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund, a $19.5 million payment to the New York State Department of Conservation (NYSDEC) in a settlement with ExxonMobil over their contamination of Newtown Creek. 

In 1979, an investigation by the Department of Conservation found that ExxonMobil, which had historically operated oil refineries and fuel storage spaces along the creek, had spilled an estimated 17 million gallons of oil into the water—one of the largest terrestrial oil spills in the country’s history. Although ExxonMobil has been working for decades to remediate the problem through groundwater treatment, the creek remains an extremely contaminated Superfund site and is still on the National Priorities List of the nation’s most hazardous toxic waste areas. 

A former wetland, much of the creek’s natural borders have been reconstructed for industrial operations, like oil refineries and petrochemical plants. 

The other day, my area was witness to a very rare weather phenomenon: thundersnow. This occurs as a thunderstorm where snow falls instead of rain. This happens for the same reason that regular thunderstorms happen but is rare because very cold air is dense and not as likely to rise as warm air. For this reason, you need some special circumstances for it to be cold enough to snow and allow air to…

L.A.’s ‘Green Alley’ Experiments Are Working (2023)

The project, built in collaboration with the Trust for Public Land, was part of a bigger vision for a network of similar infrastructure throughout the neighborhood. South L.A. has about 300 miles of alleyways — about one-third of all the alleys in the city — and due to the combination of low-lying land, paved-over surfaces, and aging sewer infrastructure, it also has the city’s second-highest rate of flooding complaints. The green alleys, once there were enough of them, could help. Mendez said yes, his neighbors did the same, and within two years, the muddy, uneven asphalt was gone. Now just beyond Mendez’s back fence is an attractive right-of-way signified by green-and-white-striped poles planted with citrus trees at each entrance. Students from the elementary school across the street help maintain the alley through regular clean-ups, and Mendez says he feels comfortable walking his dog there, even late at night.

As wave after wave of atmospheric river storms slammed the city over the last month, green alleys like Mendez’s were put to their first real test. The city received as much rainfall between the start of the rainy season in October and the end of January as it usually gets by the end of April. But as that deluge pummeled South L.A., the resulting stormwater had more opportunities to sink back into the earth: filtering through a row of permeable pavers, directing to pocket planters where creeping fig vines twirl up garage walls, or vanishing into grates labeled “drains to groundwater.” One alley even has a center-running bioswale where tiny notches along the curbs nudge water into rectangles of drought-tolerant landscaping. Mendez’s corner of the neighborhood fared well — no water issues, he said: “Right now, it’s okay.”

Meet the Equipo Verde: allies for alleys (2016)

Aliases / Nicknames: Peanut-brain, Traitor, Number-one Dad

Gender: trans tom

Sexuality: pansexual, polyamorous

Family: Pumpkinmallow (mother), unnamed father, Gulltuft (brother), Rosykit (adopted daughter), Stormwater, Thornspeckle, Blazesnow, Iceheart, Nettlefang (former mates)

Other Relations: unnamed mentor

Clan: Thunderclan

Rank: warrior

Characteristics: killed former mate in revenge for his daughter. Stole prey to resurrect his daughter

Number of Victims: 1

Number of Murders: 1

Murder Method: blunt force trauma

Known Victims: Stormwater

Victim Profile: former mate

Cause of Death: killed by Rosykit

Cautionary Tale: ??

Story:

He loved everyone with every fiber of his being.

When Rosykit was found, he took care of her, and tried to ignore the way she looked at other kits like they were freshkill.

When he came to the nursery and found it smeared with blood and the remnant of her denmates, he had asked Rosykit what had happened, his voice raising to fever pitch.

She had looked up and said, calmly, “there was a dog.”

Like a fool, he believed her, and helped groom her blood-matted fur.

His mates didn’t believe Rosykit or him. They left him for each other, and soon, Stormwater moved into the nursery with a fresh litter of kits courtesy of Nettlefang.

Or, he had a fresh litter.

One after the other, Stormwater’s kits died, and he started yelling at Peanutfur, blaming him for the deaths. Nettlefang came to his aid, but Stormwater kept blaming Peanutfur.

Gulltuft came to help, helping with Rosykit and keeping her safe, but even the most watchful of cats has to take a break at some point.

His little Rosy, dead. Her blood coating the den floor, Stormwater staring down at her in shock.

He left the Clan. He had to leave, and never come back. But first, he killed Stormwater. Crying as he did it, apologizing even as blood coated his fur. He took Rosy with him, so she wouldn’t be buried by the Clan who had killed her.

During his flight, he briefly shared an old rabbit warren with a warrior named Sapfur, who spoke of a ritual to bring back the dead. He warned, however, that the thing that came back would not be all there, that his Rosy would have to feed daily on flesh.

This didn’t faze Peanutfur.

He started killing that night.

Not cats, of course.

But prey. All kinds, from the smallest shrew to a chicken from a twoleg backyard. He piled the bodies high, and completed the ritual.

He didn’t think she’d wake up so hungry.

As his little Rosy drained him dry, he soothed her, calling her his precious, and telling her that he was so blessed to have her as a daughter.

Additional Information:

--Submission by @ambitiousauthor​

--Rosykit only kind of cares about him.

--Stormwater didn’t kill Rosykit.

--He’s a chimera! Hence the gold and brown eyes.

--His design was adopted from Chloriineacid on Etsy.