From left: Environmental Engineer Alexa McAuley from Civille, NPWS Bushcare volunteers Maree Giddens, Tracie McMahon and Rob Herbert, NPWS Field Officers Elissa McLaren, Eamonn Cunningham and Becky Chatfield, and Senior Field Officer Monica Nugent.
Story and photos by Hamish Dunlop
The National Parks and Wildlife Service in the Blue Mountains built a raingarden with the help of NPWS Bushcare volunteers. The garden filters water from the roof of the new shelter in Blackheath and slows runoff, limiting erosion. It reduces nutrient levels, disadvantaging introduced weeds. It’s a conversation starter too: what is a raingarden, and how does it work?
Key Points:
- Raingardens are effective tools for stormwater management. They filter pollutants, reduce erosion, and give a leg-up to native plants over weeds by reducing nitrogen and other nutrients that weeds prefer.
- Individuals and communities can build raingardens; they are relatively easy to construct and can be made from various materials.
- Building raingardens can bring communities together and can be used as an educational tool.
Monica Nugent is the Senior Field Officer, Bush Regeneration at NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service Upper Mountains Area. She oversees bush regeneration activities and manages local NPWS volunteer programs. She tells me the new shelter, built next to the Heritage Centre in Blackheath, is primarily used for the Discovery Ranger Program. It’s a space for groups such as volunteers to use too.
“I thought the shelter would be a great place to showcase a raingarden,” Monica says. We had some Commonwealth funding available which enabled us to engage environmental engineer Alexa McCauley from Civille. Raingardens are an effective way to help manage stormwater at a local level,” she says.
“They slow water down and filter out excess nutrients such as nitrogen and other pollutants that collect on rooves. Nutrient enriched conditions favour introduced species, enabling them to thrive while discouraging native plants. If we can slow down the amount of stormwater run-off, we can reduce weed spread into the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area,” she explains. “This helps natives to either hold strong or recover more successfully while also reducing sedimentation and erosion of our waterways.”
Raingarden Construction Overview
Watch our 6-minute overview of raingarden construction:
How does a raingarden work?
Alexa is mostly involved with large stormwater management projects, but she thinks that building raingardens is something communities can do to support the environment. “Raingardens are made from graded sediments, with local natives planted on top. Water off the roof or other stormwater, is fed into the top of the garden. The plants and fine sand filter out a substantial amount of nutrients and pollutants. At the bottom of the garden, the filtered water enters a perforated pipe covered by gravel and flows out.”
A side view of the Blackheath shelter raingarden. (Courtesy of Civille)
“You can build small ones out of planter boxes – anything really – or make a pit in the ground,” Alexa says. Generally, you want a container that is waterproof, but you can build ones in the ground. In that case, the filtered water can naturally soak down.
For any kind of raingarden, piping can be purchased from any of the major hardware stores, Alexa continues: “A few hand tools are required, mostly to work with the piping. In the Blue Mountains, the gravel and sand needed can be purchased by the bag, or from landscape and building suppliers.”
Building a raingarden
Monica, Becky and Elissa inspecting the sealed bed. The box is 0.8m deep, 0.8m wide and 2.4m long. Alexa says you don’t need to buy everything new. You could use an old, raised garden bed and seal it with silicone, or use some pool lining to make something else waterproof.
The three kinds of substrates: 10mm gravel (500kg), coarse sand (500kg) and fine sand (1000kg). There were also some bags of 20mm river stones for the top. Delivered, this cost $325 dollars.
Monica and Elissa measuring twice before cutting once! The hacksaw is visible next to Elissa’s knee. The green tarp is down to catch the little bits of plastic that are created during the cutting. This stops them getting into the environment.
Many hands solving the pipe puzzle. The joined pipes that funnel water into the garden are being positioned, to establish where to cut the downpipe. The simple pipe bracket used to fix the joined pipe sections onto the corner post of the shelter is not shown.
Starting to fill the bed with the gravel. You can see the perforated pipe running from the bottom of the vertical overflow pipe with its grate, to the outlet at the far end. If too much water comes off the roof and can’t be absorbed, it will run into the overflow pipe and not spill over the sides of the garden. This makes sure the flow of water can always be predicted.
Look at our handywork! Tracie, Alexa and Eamonn at the final sand levelling stage. Note the overflow pipe grate sitting a few centimetres above the top of the sand.
Tracie, Keith, Monica, Becky and Alexa talking about the plants. A thin layer of river stones has been added on top of the sand and the plants are being positioned. Monica says they should be local to the area. Ones that can withstand both wet and dry conditions are best. She says many of our local natives are suitable as they are naturally adapted to well drained, sandy soils. Sedges, grasses, small shrubs and even some ferns are appropriate.
The plants chosen for this bed include: Fishbone Water Fern (Blechnum nudum), Wallaby grass (Rytidosperma), Poa sieberiana, Branching Grass-flag (Libertia paniculata), Ivy-leaved Violet (Violaceae hederacea), Flax lily (Dianella ), Laurel-leaf Grevillea (Grevillea laurifolia); Mint Bush (Prostanthera rotundifolia), River rose (Bauera rubiodes).
The shelter: ‘Come Friends, Listen’
One of Monica’s motivations for the rain garden workshop was to provide an upskilling opportunity for the volunteers and NPWS staff. It was also a way of recognising volunteers with a nice lunch, for the amazing work they do. “It’s great to be able to bring volunteers and NPWS staff together,” Monica says, “especially staff that don’t necessarily have much contact with volunteers. It strengthens relationships with the community and provides an educational opportunity.”
Becky Chatfield holding the name sign for the shelter
Becky Chatfield is a proud Kamillaroi woman and one of the NPWS staff at the raingarden workshop. She says the shelter where the raingarden has been built is a place where school children and others can come to learn about the environment and culture. “The shelter is on Dharug and Gundungurra Country,” she says. “It’s really fitting that it has an Aboriginal name, one that can inspire everyone.”
“Guwi midigaa ngarra means, ‘Come friends, listen’,” Becky explains. “It’s wonderful to be able to welcome people to listen to stories and learn.” Darug/Darkinjung woman Cindy Laws at NPWS proposed the name and Dharug women Aunty Corina Norman provided advice on the spelling and pronunciation. Becky and Field Officer Elissa McLaren created the sign in the NPWS work shed.
Volunteers’ Voices
Tracie McMahon was one of the NPWS Bushcare volunteers at the workshop. Rather than thinking about volunteering as a transactional exchange, she thinks about it as relational practice. “I started volunteering after the 2019/20 fires. While I was healing on Country, Country was healing alongside me. You’re out there with amazing people too, who know so much. You get to learn from them and spend time together. It’s an incredible opportunity.”
The power of collective and sustained action is something Tracie sees time and time again. “I find pulling out weeds meditative,” she says. In some ways, it seems like a small thing to be doing in a vast wilderness. But after a few hours, you’ve made a substantial pile of weed seedlings. What you also know is that you’ve stopped those thumb-sized plants growing to metres in height and spreading seeds.
Maree is another volunteer at the workshop. While we’re talking, everyone is busy around us. There’s an overflow of goodwill and a healthy dose of laughter. Like Tracie, she values the people interactions – she’s made some great friends.
There’s something else though, which comes to the surface. It’s about value, she concludes, but not specially for her, or us as a species. “I just love seeing the bush healthy,” she reflects. “Watching and learning is part of it, and we are part of it, but not in a way where it belongs to us.”
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This story has been produced as part of a Bioregional Collaboration for Planetary Health and is supported by the Disaster Risk Reduction Fund (DRRF). The DRRF is jointly funded by the Australian and New South Wales governments.
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