Rain Garden Debuts

Santa Fe’s Newest Rain Garden Debuts on Earth Day

Story and photos by Pam McFarland

Santa Fe County’s Sustainability Division hosted an Earth Day celebration at the County Fairgrounds on April 22. Although the main event of the day was the planting of Santa Fe County’s newest rain garden, there were plenty of activities and music for all attendees.

Santa Fe County Sustainability staff, county commissioners, SFEMG volunteers and local permaculturist Reese Baker all spoke to a chilly audience on this cold spring day. In his brief talk, Baker pointed out that a relatively small percentage of the 6 billion gallons of precipitation that fall in the city each year stays in our ecosystem. If we were to harvest this rainwater, we would decrease erosion, add beauty to our landscapes, and recharge our precious groundwater. It isn’t as hard as it sounds. 

Baker described the construction of the Fairgrounds rain garden, which ensures that precipitation falling on the surrounding impervious surfaces is channeled through the multi-level rain garden and filtered to remove toxins and pollutants. Excess water moves through channels constructed by his crew into the SFEMG Rose Family Garden as well as through a long ditch and culvert into an induced meander constructed in 2021 by SFEMG volunteers. Because the parking lot and nearby buildings constitute 15,000 square feet of impervious surfaces, the rain garden will ensure that on average an additional 115,000 gallons of water are kept on site annually.

The audience was fascinated by Baker’s description of the Siberian elm logs that have been drilled, plugged with a white-rot fungi species called turkey tail (similar to shiitake and oyster mushrooms), and buried in the rain garden. The developing fungi act as a sponge to absorb water, filter out pollutants and release clean water.

County Commissioner Anna Hansen and Reese Baker plant a shrub in the new rain garden on Earth Day

This rain garden, constructed over the previous 4 weeks by Baker and his company, The RainCatcher, is quite different from the rain garden that you might build in your yard. It was constructed using heavy-duty earth moving equipment, large boulders and very strong and experienced landscape workers; you might call this a rain garden on steroids!

Come visit Santa Fe’s newest rain garden at 3229 Rodeo Road. You’ll want to visit often as the rain garden evolves over the coming years.

For more information:

The Garden Journal interview with Reese Baker (April 8, 2023)

NOTE: This story was featured in the May 1 edition of the SFEMG Newsletter.