On Saturday, June 18, more than 20 volunteers gathered at Waugh Chapel United Methodist Church in Cambridge to install a 200-square-foot rain garden. The Waugh Chapel rain garden will divert rainwater running off a portion of the church’s roof. Volunteers planted 173 plants, including blueberry bushes, black-eyed Susans, and 13 other native species.
A rain garden contains native plants as part of an attractive landscape element installed in a slight depression in the ground. The garden collects and filters rainwater from impervious surfaces like roofs, driveways, walkways, and parking lots, absorbing it into the ground and preventing it from running into streets or storm drains. Rain gardens reduce runoff, which improves water quality in nearby waterways by reducing erosion, water pollution, flooding, and diminished groundwater.
The Waugh Chapel project was funded by Chesapeake Bay Trust and Royal Bank of Canada. Other project partners included Wye Gardens, Kelly’s Excavating, Environmental Concern, the Cambridge Community Garden, and Waugh Chapel.
MidshoreRiverkeeper Conservancy is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the restoration, protection, and celebration of the waterways that comprise the Choptank River, Eastern Bay, Miles River, and Wye River watersheds.
For those who would like to get involved in another project in the Cambridge community, there will be a planting at St. Luke United Methodist Church on Monday, July 18 beginning at 8:30am. For more information or to volunteer, please contact MRC’s Elizabeth Brown at 443.385.0511 or [email protected].
Photo: MRC staff members and volunteers gather around the finished rain garden at Waugh Chapel United Methodist Church in Cambridge. The planting was organized by Elizabeth Brown of MRC (center, in hat and green shirt) and Reverend Emmanuel Johnson of Waugh Chapel (third from the right, in yellow shirt).
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