Rain Garden

Rick's Rain Garden

We know a beautiful soul has walked the earth

 because they leave us with beautiful memories.

When I read the above lines on the internet some time ago,

I thought of my brother-in-law Rick, who would have been 51 today,

the first day of Spring.

Rick taught us a lot about caring for other people 

and about stewardship of the earth.

He loved nature and served on the Board 

of the South Grand River Watershed Alliance (SGRWA) in Missouri.

One of the projects Rick helped to build was a rain garden.

Here's a description from the Missouri Botanical Gardens web page

about rain gardens:

A rain garden slows the flow of rainwater runoff by using elements

similar to those that occur in nature:  plants, stone, shallow swales

and depressions that catch and hold rainwater.

And in a fitting tribute to Rick's memory, the SGRWA 

is establishing a rain garden in Raymore, Missouri dedicated to Rick.

This rain garden photo is from http://www.eastpikeland.org

A rain garden sounds like a magical, peaceful place,

and its artful arrangement of native plants makes it beautiful.

The rain garden is both an aesthetic undertaking 

and, as the Botanical Gardens description attests,

 one that serves an important environmental purpose.

For example, the rain garden that Rick helped build

was designed to catch the run off from a parking lot.

Rain water from the parking area was cutting a trench across the lot below.

By planting a rain garden filled with deep-rooted native plants,

the water was held in place until it could leach slowly into the soil.

Rain garden photo is from www.mychamplain.net

I love the way a shallow of muck like this:

photo edited from one on http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/topic/raingarden/Building.htm

turns into a rain garden like this:

and this:

Rain garden photo from www.apwa.org

It just takes a vision of what can be when we work together--

something that Rick understood better than most of us.

Happy Birthday to one of the finest men I knew.

~

If you would like to contribute to Rick Lincoln's Rain Garden,

please contact:

 Doris Sherrick

SGRWA

10807 E 205 Street

Peculiar, MO 64078

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