Tag Archives: rain garden

Rain Garden’s First Birthday

02/28/2014 svseekins 1 Comment

Fisherman's Wharf rain garden fall 2013 WS2 — BEFORE
(photo by SVSeekins)

Don’t you just love Before & After photos? I do! I lose appreciation when measuring small day-to-day changes. Progress is so much more apparent when distanced by time.

That’s why I’m excited to compare the changes of the Fisherman’s Wharf Park after its 1st birthday.

When I originally visited the newly renovated park, I was charmed by the landscape architecture. A flat field had morphed into undulating hills & lovely ponds. Pretty.

Fisherman's Wharf rain garden fall 2012 WS1 — BEFORE
photo by SVSeekins

Fisherman's Wharf rain garden fall 2013 WS1 — AFTER
photo by SVSeekins

Careful plant selections of natives & non-local species provide potential for a low maintenance park.

As any new transplants need regular watering until established, Victoria Parks department installed irrigation into the beds.

The plants, trees & shrubs prospered. The water requirements will diminish as the beds mature.

The holding pond of the rain garden is coming into its own.

Fisherman's Wharf rain garden fall 2012 MS1 — BEFORE
(photo by SVSeekins)

Fisherman's Wharf rain garden fall 2013 MS1 — AFTER
(photo by SVSeekins)

For the past year, rain has been redirected from the neighboring parking lots & streets, and into the catchment pond.

Check out the height of the drain. It shows how deep the pond will get before overflowing into the storm drain system. Any standing water is filtered by the rain garden. It returns to the natural water table, instead of being sent to out to sea.

These plants / filters sure don’t look any worse for wear, considering they clean up any of the runoff’s pollutants. Isn’t science & nature groovy?

Fisherman's Wharf rain garden fall 2012 beach — BEFORE
(photo by SVSeekins)

Fisherman's Wharf rain garden fall 2013 beach — AFTER
(photo by SVSeekins)

I’m not convinced the sandy beach is really what was here before Fisherman’s Wharf took over the area, but it’s a nifty idea. Can’t you imagine leaning your back against a big log & reading a good book?

It’s looking much more natural to me now. Sunshine & warm sand will be calling to me this summer. No doubt I’ll have to arrive early to get a spot.

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© SVSeekins, 2014

garden visits

James Bay Rain Garden

01/29/2013 svseekins 7 Comments

Once upon a time (way back in the 90’s) I went to the park on the corner of Superior and St. Lawrence streets to enjoy a game of softball. The sun was shining, the game was fun, but the temperature was several degrees below the rest of town. Despite the gorgeous site at Fisherman’s Wharf, it was one of my least favourite parks to hang out in.

new life for the park at Fisherman's Wharf — photo by SVSeekins

Recently this park has climbed up several notches in my esteem. The city of Victoria has completed a massive makeover.

rolling hills & wandering trails circle the rain garden — photo by SVSeekins

Now it’s a leap to imagine the flat sports field. Brand spanking new hills block views of the urban streets & buildings. The varied landscape creates a feeling of privacy. It makes the green space seem larger than it really is.

Wandering pathways lead to several garden rooms. I especially like with the emphasis on native plants & trees. A walk along one of the trails feels so much more peaceful than one on the sidewalk just a few yards away.

excess water will flood into the storm drain (far left) — photo by SVSeekins

Part of the new design is a rain garden. By coincidence the same folks that created the Atrium rain garden that I like so much, also came up with this design.

The James Bay project has a much larger retention pond than the little boulevards at Yates and Blanchard streets.

It’s engineered so that the local streets & parking areas provide the runoff water for the large rain garden. Notice how deep the pond can get before excess water flows into the raised storm drain. I’m so curious to come back to see the ponds in the peak of rainy season.

in homage to the shoreline & sandy beach of years ago — photo by SVSeekins

A stone wall winds around the park, showing where the natural shoreline used to be. In one place, The Victoria Parks Department has even gone to the length of adding sand, grasses and logs reminiscent of the past beach. Isn’t it charming?

the playground near Fisherman's Wharf — photo by SVSeekins

Being near all the boats at Fisherman’s Wharf, it seems suitable that the playground matches with a shipwreck at its entry gate

An open grassy areaa looks out at Fishernan's Wharf — photo by SVSeekins

And for folks that really do want to throw around a baseball, there still is a wide open grassy area. My imagination has an active game of Frisbee tag keeping me warm against the cool sea breeze.

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© copyright 2013 SVSeekins

boulevard garden, garden visits, projects

Nature Improves Urban Life

11/07/2012 svseekins 5 Comments

In the downtown core of BC’s capital city, I’m glad there are some spots where pedestrians enjoy some separation from the vehicle traffic as they all go about their busy schedules.

the Atrium rain garden - separating pedestrians from vehicle traffic — photo by SVSeekins

But in this spot, on the northeast corner of Yates & Blanshard streets, it’s more than just a pretty boulevard. Here nature is working hard as a public utility: a rain garden.

A rain garden is basically a ditch.

Most cities have been done with ditches for ages, favouring underground storm drain systems to pipe rainwater away quickly. Although that sounds pretty civilized, it means:

water drains so fast that there’s no time for it to soak in and nourish boulevard trees & landscaping, much less refill the natural water table
street pollution washes into the storm system and then dumps directly into streams or the ocean
in heavy rains, the storm drain system can’t handle the rush of runoff, so streets flood anyway

the Atrium rain gardens - parking & street drains into ditch — photo by SVSeekins

The rain garden acts as a bit of a pond containing the flow for a small rain event (about 2.5 cm rainfall). That’s the amount that washes the oils & chemicals off the street.

The trees, plants, and soils in the ditch are not only nourished, but they also break down the pollutants before the water infiltrates more deeply into the earth beneath.

It sounds kinda crazy that plants can break down pollution, doesn’t it? Science swears it’s true.

the Atrium rain gardens - ditch grate — photo by SVSeekins

In a heavier rainstorm, the runoff gathers in the rain garden, and the excess water flows more slowly away in that handy storm drain system.

It sounds like a win-win situation to me.

The rain irrigates the garden naturally.

Pollutants are treated by an effective process.

There’s less flooding now & the storm drain system won’t need expensive pipe enlargements to handle the increased rains we’re getting over the past few years.

the Atrium rain gardens - nature assisting urban life — photo by SVSeekins

I especially appreciate that the gardens provide some natural beauty to an otherwise glass, steel & concrete desert.

Now the curiosity rises in my mind: which trees & plants thrive in one of these ditches? They’d need to be happy with both very wet feet in winter and very dry in summer…. ideas?

P.S. Check here for more on rain gardens: