Pittsfield Elementary (AAPS) Rain Garden - Master Rain Garden Class

last year

last modified: last year

The A²Zero Ambassadors COSA team collaborating and working with Pittsfield Elementary and other local volunteers to design, plan, implement, and maintain a small rain garden.

We got input from their Green Team to design a 5 ft. x 5 ft. rain team. We adapted their designed and fleshed it out a bit to come up with this design:

(each grid square is roughly 2 feet)

Plants

We plan to plant these plants in the rain garden (in order of priority depending on sourcing from the Freeman Center):

Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) - roughly 5
Blazing Star (Liatris spicata) - roughly 7-10
Woodland Sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) - roughly 6

The top 3 choices were selected by the Pittsfield Elementary Green Team students. We requested those quantities from the Freeman Environmental Education Center, which is part of the school district.

Soil Drainage

We conducted a percolation test on April 12 and 13, 2025. We dug and filled the first 18 inches of water on Saturday around 11 AM and was nearly drained by 6 PM. The second 18 inches of water took roughly 26 hours to drain 11 inches before we had to fill the hole for school the next day and avoided the overnight rain. It seems like it would have completed draining in close to 48 hours, although a bit uncertain since the deeper layer seems to have more clay content and drained slower. The deeper taproots of the native species we indent to plant should break up this soil and facilitate better drainage.

Featured Answer

Susan Bryan

last year

Looks great! I like how you picked a spot where it collects water from the sidewalk. Ingenious! :)

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Comments (7)

tvaduva
Original Author
last year
The building drains directly to the sewers, but we selected this location with input from the county's rain garden program to collect the runoff from the nearby sidewalks, as well as the slight grade where we seen water pool:
laceyvail 6A, WV
last year
I am no expert on rain gardens, but a couple of the plant choices for wet soil have me baffled.

1. If by "Butterfly Milkweed" you mean Asclepias tuberosa, that orange flowered milkweed has a long tap root and requires dry soil. More appropriate would be A. incarnata sp and cvs.

2. Blazing star--I guess Liatris sp. However, the most moisture tolerant is, I believe, L. spicata and even that one doesn't want too much wet.

I think you need to further research plant choices. I hope that you know more about the proper construction of a rain garden than you do about plant choices. I also believe that a rain garden should be constructed no closer to a building than 10 ft. Not sure you have that.
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Dwellmend
last year
The Pittsfield Elementary AAPS Rain Garden Master Class sounds like a fantastic initiative for sustainable landscaping! Rain gardens, like the one at Pittsfield, are great for managing stormwater runoff while boosting curb appeal with native plants. For anyone in California interested in similar projects, understanding local contractor regulations is key when hiring pros for garden installations.
tvaduva
Original Author
last year
Thanks, you can click the second image I posted as 10 ft. away from building.

We met with our county's rain garden expert, and picked species from the list she suggested.

Liatris spicata in our plant guide can handle wet. We only expect this spot to be moderately wet. Also, your comment made me notice that I uploaded an earlier design, I'll change it to our current design where the milkweed and sunflower is around the parameter where they went get as wet.
tvaduva
Original Author
last year
last modified: last year
This is a picture of the general location:

This is the design in legos that some of the students worked on:
Susan Bryan
last year
Love the legos. Awesome sauce.

Your plant choices are fine. Laceyvail had some good comments, and yes, Butterfly Milkweed usually grows in dry. But we have (strangely! against expectations!) had good success with it in rain gardens. So we'll see!