Gardens | Despite Problems, Seattleites Push Ahead With ‘rain Gardens’
Now homeowners in West Seattle hope a new project to collect storm and sewage water won’t have the same problems there.
Marilyn Jacobs of Rain Dog Designs is a landscape designer who’s helping neighbors in West Seattle dig up 10 yards. They’re installing rain gardens she says will help keep Puget Sound clean.
“The water can sit in there for a couple days in the wintertime,” says Jacobs. “So the plants I choose can have wet feet in the winter and are drought-tolerant in the summer.”
A couple of blocks away from those homes is Longfellow Creek. It’s that body of water the neighbors are trying so hard to protect.
Every year, 100 million gallons of city stormwater mixed with sewage flows into local lakes and into Puget Sound. The gardens would help soak it up.
Neighbors say it is all for a good cause – but they also know about the rain gardens in Ballard.
There, the city is spending $500,000 to fix “problem gardens” there, after getting complaints about standing water, mosquitos breeding and negative effects on property
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