five- by eight-foot rain garden at a rental home they own in Mount Pleasant. Rain was causing erosion around the back porch, washing away landscaping mulch and preventing grass from growing in spots of the backyard, Karen Piret said. The small rain garden was a simple and inexpensive fix, she said.“ There are no more water issues,” said Piret, who graduated from Clemson Extensions’ Master Gardener program.“ We are really happy this solved our problems because then we didn’ t have to dig a drain and run tubing. That would have been a lot of work.”
George Aaron, also a Master Gardener, installed two rain gardens near his home— one about 10 by 18 feet and a second six by eight feet— to pull water away from his home and also rid his yard of puddles after rainfall.“ I live on the marsh, so we also wanted to keep the runoff out of the marsh,” Aaron said.
Rain Garden Resources To learn more about rain gardens, find the Clemson Extension“ Carolina Rain Garden Initiative” at
www. clemson. edu / raingarden. Resources include:
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Virtual Rain Garden, a step-by-step video tutorial on rain garden design and installation
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The Clemson Extension“ A Guide to Rain Gardens in South Carolina” manual 2016
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Listing of upcoming rain garden programs and workshops
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Demonstration rain gardens throughout South Carolina
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Links to Carolina Yards plant database and more. NK
Kim Counts Morganello is a Water Resources Agent for the Clemson Extension Service and Carolina Clear program. Kim co-coordinates the Ashley Cooper Stormwater Education
Consortium; in this role, she works with community and education partners to promote watershed stewardship by providing education and involvement opportunities in the Charleston region and beyond. Kim has experience both in practice and instruction of landscape-level best management practices for protecting downstream water quality, with particular emphasis on rain gardens, rainwater harvesting, the use of native plants, and vegetative buffers.
When not at work, Kim is typically found enjoying the lowcountry waterways.
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