Join us on Saturday, April 5th for a Rain Garden Design Workshop at the Bentonville Public Library, followed by a native plant swap!
Learn how to design, build, and maintain a rain garden that manages stormwater, supports biodiversity, and improves water quality.
In this hands-on workshop, you’ll explore how rain gardens reduce runoff, filter pollutants, and enhance soil health. We’ll cover the essentials of site selection, construction, native plant selection, maintenance strategies, and the principles of ecological landscape design.
Participants will have the opportunity to design their own rain garden with expert feedback. The workshop also includes a guided tour of the Bentonville Public Library’s new rain gardens, showcasing sustainable stormwater solutions in action. Ideal for homeowners, gardeners, and anyone passionate about creating beautiful, functional landscapes that protect local waterways.
Fill out the registration form below to attend the Rain Garden Design Workshop hosted at the Bentonville Public Library on Saturday, April 5th. Registration is limited to 60 attendees, and the first 30 to register will receive a free native plant!
Why is Green Infrastructure Important to our Rapidly Urbanizing Region?
You may not think that your lawn has much of an impact on the world beyond your block, but it does! We have been trained over generations to appreciate lawns and open space as that are uniform with grass freshly cut short and free of ruffage. Let‘s rethink our vision of a perfect lawn and learn how to incorporate stormwater into our landscaping to improve water quality, help our neighbors downstream, and create beautiful spaces that connect us with our natural heritage.
“Each week we mow 45 million acres of lawns, an area larger than Florida. Two million more acres of lawns are added each year. Over the growing season, 800 million gallons of gasoline are used. We use 25,000 gallons of water per lawn to keep it green, half of our household water consumption. Lawns are our biggest irrigated crop but we cannot eat it or sell it.“ (AR.Audubon.org)
One of the primary reasons we need more use of rain gardens, rain barrels, managed natural areas, no mow zones, and other residential stormwater solutions is due to the rapid streambank erosion we are experiencing in the Illinois River Watershed. Our engineered hardscapes are very efficient at moving stormwater away from our properties at a high volume, velocity and with contaminants eventually arriving at our natural stormwater infrastructure - swales, streams, creeks, and rivers that are used for recreation and drinking water. This natural infrastructure is not equipped to handle the consequences of even small rains falling on today’s engineered landscapes.
Streambank erosion is “death by 1,000 cuts” as it shears away soil, erodes banks resulting in tree falls, and loss of what we call riparian vegetation. The riparian area is the area of land adjacent to the stream; it is an important and often vulnerable area, hosting a multitude of habitats and shading the water to prevent pathogen breeding and harmful algae blooms. One other reason we need to integrate native plants and rain gardens into our landscapes is that deep root systems absorb stormwater and treat pollution from fertilization, pesticide and herbicide application, industrial contaminants, pet waste, and most everything to keep them from going downstream. This process is called phytoremediation.
Resources: