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CROTON-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. Dozens of people gathered at the Croton Free Library on Saturday, Feb. 25 for an event that most might not associate with drawing a crowdbackyard drainage. Jan Johnsen, chair of the Village of Crotons Conservation Advisory Council, said soggy backyards are a common problem with some simple solutions.
We had 60 people show up, which was amazing for the first talk, Johnsen said.
The CAC is hosting a series of talks on sustainable ways to maintain landscaping and aid the natural environment. Johnsen owns her own company, Johnsen Landscapes and Pools, and she also teaches landscape architecture at Columbia University.
Johnsen said putting in rain gardens of moisture tolerant plants, creating dry streams, using permeable paving and minimizing lawn area can all stop backyards from becoming soggy mud messes. The added benefit of this sustainable landscape architecture is runoff into streams and rivers is reduced, reducing the amount of phosphates that enter waterways.
Johnsen added that creating ways for water to naturally filter through layers of ground helps remove phosphates and chemicals.
Once it goes down the drain who thinks about it, but in these heavy rain storms now were overloading everything. And frankly all the pollutants go straight into the waters and the wetlands and hurt the amphibians and the fish. Use natures filter, Johnsen said. Let the water filter down into the ground.
Plants like caltha palustris, marsh marigolds, iris sibitica, Siberian iris and hamamelis vernalis, witch hazel, are all moisture tolerant. Planting these in a low-lying area of the yard can help soak up extra water, and keep it from pooling in the yard or leaking into the basement. Many moisture tolerant plants are also deer resistant, so the local fauna wont make a meal out of the garden. Some attract butterflies, an added aesthetic benefit.
Dry streams are another way to reduce soggy sod. They act like small stone-lined streams, directing water into a rain garden or woods. Permeable paving can be gravel for a driveway or stone-topped grass steps. Using gravel or shale instead of blacktop creates filtration, instead of impermeable services that create runoff.
Johnsen said people from as far away as Brooklyn came to Croton to hear about how to sustainably reduce drainage problems in their back (or front) yards. The next talk by the CAC "Protect Your Yard from Deer," presented by Bruce Laemmel and Laur McKillop, will be held March 27 at 7 p.m. at the Croton Free Library.
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