Rain Gardens on Horse Properties

CDN.Thehorse.com - Full Article

by Alayne Renée Blickle

11 April 2013

Rain gardens are a bright new idea for dealing with an age-old nemesis on horse properties - too much water and MUD! And they are a fun way to deal with April showers.

Rain gardens can do many things, such as:
• Reduce flooding;
• Reduce mud and erosion;
• Filter polluted runoff;
• Recharge groundwater;
• Provide wildlife habitat; and
• Provide an attractive, low-cost landscaping feature.

If you’re a horse person and you’ve never heard of a rain garden, stick with me here. A rain garden is simply a planted shallow depression in the ground that captures and temporarily holds rainwater from downspouts and from rain running downhill across the ground (called surface runoff). It is sort of like a miniature pond that drains, planted with native plants that don’t mind getting their feet wet. In more urban environments the surface runoff is from hard surface areas like parking lots, roofs and driveways...

Read more here:
http://cs.thehorse.com/blogs/smart-horse-keeping/archive/2013/04/11/rain-gardens-on-horse-properties.aspx?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=welfare-industry&utm_campaign=04-11-2013