Twigs from my garden

My last column was about how a rain garden planted in a natural or manmade gully, depression, swale, or at the bottom of a slope — wherever water tends to collect after heavy rain — can benefit a residential yard and, on a much larger scale, an entire community which experiences floodingI must admit at this point, I have a personal interest in researching rain gardens: a shallow manmade swale is located just behind our house in the country. This swale carries runoff rainwater from our yard and the woods beyond into “the crick,” as my family called it — actually, a long-ago dug ditch — just west of our property.When I was young, this creek, bordered by large trees and underbrush, meandering along fencerows and fields, and looking more like a natural creek than a ditch, served as my outdoor laboratory. There I spent countless hours observing water spiders and other aquatic insects or building miniature dams and waterfalls with small branches and rocks. In a wide spot near the bridge, my sister and I waded on a hot summer afternoon until a snake frightened us out of the cool muddy water. Early one spring, when the water rose particularly high, my father and I were able to canoe upstream through the woods until the creek was no longer navigable.Besides being part of my childhood memories, a ditch such as this one is a perfect example of how rainwater drains northwestern Ohio farm fields. The ditch beside our property heads south; the water it collects and carries joins with other ditches, dumping into streams and, eventually draining, I am guessing, into the Auglaize River.Now I am looking at our swale in a different way, more than as a drainage of our property. I hope to create a rain garden at the swale’s widest point where it retains water the longest. Since the swale is manmade, the am expecting the site to be subsoil and needing some soil amendment.What plants will grow in a rain garden? Many native flowers and grasses have adapted beautifully to our heavy clay soils, tolerating extremes in moisture and temperature, and surviving wet conditions when rains inundate us and the droughts of our hot summers. They have adapted so well, they should flourish even in urban settings and subdivisions. They require little, if any, watering during dry spells, will not need to be fertilized or mulched, and are generally, and naturally, disease- and insect-resistant. They require less care than non-native plants and have the best chances to survive.The choices of native plants and flowers are many, but I need to consider whether they are habitat-specific (for example, requiring rich woodland soil) and the exposure they require, in other words, sun or shade. I hope to create a rain garden so something is always in bloom throughout the growing season. Because native plants do so well, one species may overtake the others, unless thinned. (I’m thinking Penstemon!) As with any garden, I plan to begin with a small area, experimenting as I go.I may find some native plants already growing wild elsewhere on my land; others may have to be bought. Collected or purchased seeds often are the easiest way to plant native plants. (For a complete list of native plants of Ohio, contact a local OSU-Extension office and request Bulletin 865.)Interested in planting your own rain garden? For pictures of beautiful rain gardens for ideas and inspiration, check out this online site: http://www.raingardennetwork.com/rgphotosB2.htm.Event• The regional spring meeting of Ohio Association of Garden Clubs will be April 22 at Forest Park United Methodist Church, 315 S. Collins Ave., Lima, beginning at 8:30 a.m. Tom Shisler, director of Wahkeena State Nature Preserve, will highlight spring wildflowers in the morning program, “The Wonderful World of Wahkeena.” In the afternoon, a plant auction emphasizing wildflowers will be held. Cost for the day, including luncheon, is $10, or $5 without lunch. The public is welcome to attend. For details and to register, contact Mona Reichenbach at 419-358-6016.Master Gardener Tip of the WeekJack-in-the-Pulpit is an early spring-blooming wildflower. The green and purple-brown flower curves like a “pulpit” surrounding “Jack,” a cluster of tiny flowers referred to as a spadix. Look for this native flower growing in very rich damp wood soil and at the edges of swamps.