Courtesy Photo Pictured is the sign for the rain garden near the water tower and skateboard park in Alpena.

ALPENA — While talks have simmered over the possible rain garden that Alpena Public Schools Board of Education recently voted against, another rain garden in Alpena is continuing to thrive after about 16 years.

Elizabeth Littler, a member of the Alpena gardening club, helps maintain the garden located next to the Alpena water tower and skatepark.

A rain garden, she said, is grown in a depression in a landscape. To figure out what size the garden needs to be, measurements are taken to determine the amount of drainage that will flow into it. The garden at the skatepark is about 600 feet by three feet.

In a rain garden planted at someone’s house, a downspout could be used to drain water directly into the garden.

Rain gardens are intended to trap, absorb, and filter water, Littler said. The gardens are created with native, deep-rooted plants that absorb most of the runoff from storms and are a great solution for stormwater pollution.

Pollutants are stopped by rain garden plants from reaching bodies of water like lakes and rivers.

Littler said that rain gardens keep groundwater clean, as well as bodies of water. For example, the rain garden at the skatepark absorbs pollutants that would otherwise drain into the Thunder Bay River.

With fewer pollutants entering bodies of water like Lake Huron, water treatment facilities do not have to spend as much to purify and clean water.

A particular issue discussed by APS board members about the rain garden was its maintenance. Many community members said they were willing to support the garden should it be voted for.

Littler said she helps out at the skatepark’s rain garden at least once a week during the summer months. Rain gardens do not need to be watered or fertilized, but they do need to be weeded and mulched.

Littler said that with students on break during the summer, when the bulk of the maintenance is done, she would question whether a rain garden at the high school could be well-maintained.

“If you plant a garden, you have to maintain it no matter what kind it is,” she said. “Most of the growing is done during the summer.”

Littler emphasized that weeding is always a necessary task at the skatepark’s garden, but the garden club does a good job at keeping it nice.

“We are pretty much under control,” she said.

While the heavy lifting is completed in the summer, rain gardens also bloom in the spring and fall, depending on the variety of plants in them. When the garden is in bloom all summer long, it is very beneficial to pollinators.

“It’s so much fun just to see the plants coming in, and the birds and bees,” Littler said.

Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@TheAlpenaNews.com.