Rain Garden vs Nature's Notebook

Rain gardens are depressions in the ground that collect rainwater from roofs, driveways, parking areas, or other hard surfaces, reducing the amount of polluted runoff entering local waterways. The University of Connecticut Center for Land Use Education and Research developed this App as a resource for homeowners, landscapers, contractors, and others. The App will guide you through the process of designing, installing, and maintaining a rain garden. The App includes basic information about what rain gardens are and how they work; guidance on how to design and install them properly; and tips on maintaining your garden. The app includes several short video tutorials to help users with each step of the process. Through the App’s Plant Selector tool users can select native, noninvasive plants and their cultivars that are known to work well in rain gardens. Plants can be selected based on plant type, sun exposure, and bloom color. There are also tools for determining rain garden size based on the size of the area draining to it, a soil drainage map to help determine if a rain garden makes sense in a particular area, and a simple cost calculator to gauge cost. Users can also store information in the App about the Rain Gardens they have installed and set maintenance reminders for multiple gardens. It is currently geared primarily toward users in CT, so the plant catalog and mapping tools are specific to that area. However, the general information and tips are applicable anywhere. We hope to have a nationally applicable version available soon. The Center for Land Use Education and Research is a partnership between the Departments of Extension and Natural Resources and Environment in UConn’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the Connecticut Sea Grant Program.

Nature's Notebook is a program for observing and recording plant and animal life cycle events, like flowering and bird migration. Use this app to mark your sites, create a list of plants and animals, and going into the field to record observations throughout the seasons. Find out more at www.usanpn.org/nn/guidelines.