Today on the James: From Homely to Healthy in One Summer: Part 1- The Plan

By Linda Mills, River Hero Homeowner

Recently our yard was transformed from an urban lot plagued with water problems into a river-healthy patch of natural beauty that attracts birds, butterflies and humans in equal droves. We always knew our yard had issues—run off and flooding being the most critical. And we had attempted to “fix” it with a rain barrel and grading the land toward the alley, away from our house. But with the amount of roofline we have, rain water still found its way into the alley, the street and our basement.

About a year ago, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay was promoting a program to address stormwater pollution in the Reedy Creek Watershed of South Richmond. Since we live in this watershed which flows into the James River, our home was eligible for a free audit conducted by Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and the Reedy Creek Coalition. As a River Hero Home certified by the James River Association, we were interested in continuing our dedication to the James River. We already had some of the required river-friendly practices in place—utilizing a rain barrel, picking up after our dog, and eliminating fertilizers by using compost from our own compost pile. But we wanted to do more.

The volunteers and experts from Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay came and studied our yard. They identified where we could improve the landscape to decrease run off, and they made recommendations on how to accomplish this. The final report gave us several options. First, we could install a rain garden in an area that was a route to the street for roof run off. Second, we could create a BayScape of native plants as a buffer to slow run off. Finally, we could solve one of our property’s most serious run off problems by installing permeable pavers. Each option sounded great, and we wanted to do all three. But who has the money for all those improvements? The Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay did!

Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay had received grant funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, The Community Foundation, and Altria to help homeowners in the Reedy Creek Watershed reduce their stormwater runoff. Since we qualified for improvements recommended by the audit, our yard qualified for grant-funded projects, as long as we adhered to their requirements. We were thrilled!

“Let’s get started,” we cried!

The first step was to choose a landscaper. Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay had a list of approved landscapers, folks who had been trained to understand the importance and logistics of rain gardens, BayScapes and permeable pavers. Having been impressed by several of their projects in the neighborhood, we chose Greener Landscapes, a local team of three tremendously hardworking guys led by Ian Johnson (804-339-4401, ian@greenerlandscapes.com). We could not be more delighted with our choice. (And at this point, our neighborhood boasts several impressive river-friendly gardens this team has created.)

Ian met with us to find out what we liked and hoped for, studied the yard, and then drew up plans. (We paid for the plans.) He presented us with a gorgeous rendition of what our yard could look like, including all the wonderful native plants he suggested using, their common names and their Latin names. We knew many of the plants—purple coneflower, black-eyed Susan, and bee balm. But what were black snake root, service berry and Virginia sweetspire? We took our own research trip online with that list in hand. It was exciting to find out about plants that would thrive in our Virginia yard.

After fiddling with the plans and plant choices a bit, the whole plan had to be approved by Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. Once we were given the go ahead, we went! Here are some photos of our yard before anything was done. We so needed a makeover! Stay tuned for additional coverage of our new yard. You can look forward to photos of each stage of the rain garden, the BayScape and the permeable pavers as they went in.

Find out how this…