Low Impact Development (LID) is a strategy used for water quality protection.  A rain garden is one of many LID strategies commonly used to help soak in rainwater to help replenish groundwater resources and use the natural landscape to filter out pollutants. 

Click here to see a step by step slide show on how a rain garden is installed and then think about how you might start a rain garden challenge in your community.  It may take a few moments to download, so please be patient.

Do rain gardens work in winter?  Click here for a fact sheet provided by the CT Non-point Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO) program.

Certain plants are more suitable to plant in rain gardens.  These plants can tolerate periods of wet roots as well as dry periods between rain events. 

For a more comprehensive booklet on Rain Gardens in Connecticut, A Design Guide to Homeowners, click here for this excellent guide by the UCONN Cooperative Extension System.  More ideas on rain garden designs are in this excellent publication by the Wisconsin Cooperative Extension System.  These are both large files, but worth the wait.

Low Impact Development (LID) is a comprehensive land planning and engineering design approach with a goal of maintaining and enhancing the pre-development hydrologic regime of urban and developing watersheds.  For more information about LID, you can download a new brochure from the Connecticut DEP if you click here.  The second publication of the LID series features rain gardens.  Click here to download this brochure.