Rain Garden Observations
After researching rain gardens and visiting several sites around my neighborhood, I selected to observe two rain gardens near the intersection of Nostrand and Kosciuszko. I have named them East Garden and West Garden:
Inventory
On my first observation visit, I decided to take an inventory of my rain gardens. Here is what I found, including an inventory of the trash:
West Garden
Trash:
46 cigarettes
5 pieces of plastic
1 aluminum yogurt top
East Garden
Trash
9 cigarettes
1 pom pom
1 teddy graham bag
1 spork
1 milk carton
1 lollipop wrapper
1 muffin wrapper
1 bottle cap
Multiple candy wrappers
1 lid
1 chips bag
1 snapple bottle
2 shot bottles
1 apple core
1 paper towel tube
1 glasses cloth
49 unidentified
Boundaries and borders
As porous piece of infrastructure that is embedded into the landscape of the city and interacts with other systems, I am particularly interested in understanding the different boundaries of the rain garden. I am particularly looking for evidence of border crossings and have already found a few examples:
Little bird!
Bird: While I was observing the East garden, I scared away a couple birds that were sitting under a bush. Once I moved to the side a bit one of them returned and a second one joined it. They seemed to be eating, picking up little pieces of something. Just as quickly as they came, they left again.
Evidence of water: After a rainstorm, I found evidence of water entering the rain gardens. From the marks in the soil, I could see a clear path of water flowing down and into the garden from the street. I could also see what looks may be a high water mark - the leaves had been rearranged into new patterns from where they were strewn earlier in the week. There was a line of leaves that seemed to have indicated a high water mark and a couple new clusters where they looked like they had been pushed by the water.
[photos]
Evidence of “high water mark”
Evidence of flow into the raingarden
I have also been drawing different boundaries in order to explore how they all overlap in one place:
Sound
On my visits I was very aware of the sounds around me as I observed the garden. I have also noticed that these change depending on the time of day and day of the week that I visit. When I first chose this, but I find notw that there is quite a lot of activity on teh treet. So on one visit, I spent time listening closely to these sounds. Below is what I heard:
Caw of crow
Birds chirping
Car idling
Cars on busy street
Music from car
Laughing on phone
Music from cafe
Trucks on street
Whistling
Hammer
Bike passing by
Wind rustling leaves
Car diving by
Kids in stroller
Man with cane
Man walking with music
I recorded a 1.5 minute clip for each garden to capture some of these:
After a Rain
I visited a the rain gardens after a big storm to record the moisture levels using the device I made for the measuring device assignment. Here were their measurements:
West Garden
Input area
Moisture ranged from 358-566 - on a second measurement when I placed the sensor farther into the soil it read 288 (this is high)
Temperature: 53.50 degree F
Humidity: 58.23%
Output area
Moisture: 270 (this is high)
Temperature: 57.2 degrees F
Humidity: 58.23%
East Garden
Input Area
Moisture: 386
Temperature: 56.70 degrees F
Humidity: 57.74%
Output area
Moisture: 433
Temperature: 57.90 degrees F
Humidity: 56.94%