What were the main goals for this project?
The goal of our project was to create an educational and interactive rain ‘Play Garden’ where children can discover and play among a biodiverse and pollinator-positive environment.
Through this we hoped to reduce runoff, improve the resilience of our ‘nature playground’ and establish a wildlife habitat to provide hands-on learning opportunities that inspire curiosity, connection, and advocacy for our natural world.
What challenges did you encounter?
The initial location for the garden was not situated in a spot that really made sense for a traditional raingarden. We decided to use the location but change the design. Feral Flora recommended install mini-raingardens throughout the playscape. This ended up working just fine! Another challenge was organizing a mulch delivery and delaying our planting day due to inclement weather.
Project timeline
September 2024: Initial meeting with Feral Flora
March 2025: Proposal from Feral Flora
May 2025: Feral Flora sprayed the site
June 2025: Basin digging and berm building with children
June 2025: Mulch work day and plant drop-off
June 28th 2025: Community work day with families
August 2025: WCCD sign install
What were the successes of this project?
Feral Flora was really easy to work with for this project. The proposal, plan, and quote Jared wrote up was easy to follow and put in action. He was super responsive to emails throughout the process. We were also really pleased that the children were very active in the digging out of all the mini-raingardens. Children could come out to the nature playground to help dig for a couple weeks before our community day. We had over 40 people come out to our Community Work Day, including teachers, neighbors, parents, grandparents, students, and siblings. Throughout the summer children helped water the plants when they were out on the nature playground. They survived through the fall and we look forward to see how it returns in the spring.
What are the plans for future use and maintenance of the Rain Play Garden?
We plan to have annual Community Workdays to mulch, weed, and care for the playscape. We have a pathway through the playscape which the children enjoy running through. We plan to have each class make various stepping stones to make a more obvious thoroughfare and avoid having the children run or plan on the plants.