Marywood Rain Garden and Prairie
Dominican Center
Aquinata Hall
153 Lakeside Drive NE
Grand Rapids, Michigan
The problem
The rain garden at Marywood was created as part of an effort to handle stormwater beautifully on the Campus of the Dominican Center. A stormwater detention pond next to the parking lot of Aquinata Hall needed some revamping, because spring water 
The goal for this project was to remove the constant wetness and create something beautiful that would manage the stormwater and enhance and delight the neighborhood. During spring 2004 rain events, the pond area filled completely, so storage was sufficient; it simply didn't infiltrate or drain fast enough. Mature native plantings would fill the bill for this site, making the area attractive and helping assure infiltration.
The prairie
The grounds staff and management regraded the larger pond area, and seeded that section with a short prairie mixture of grasses and wildflowers. A mature prairie planting (three years old) can absorb many inches of rain per hour. The prairie area was also seeded with annual ryegrass to immediately stabilize the soils, as the prairie plants would not get good growth until the cool days of fall. There is an overflow drain from the pond next Lakeside Drive that goes to the storm sewers. (Two weeks before planting, the extensive weeds were treated with Roundup.)
The rain garden, watered by springs
Marywood gave us a triangular corner of the detention area for the formal rain garden. The flow from the springs was collected into a perforated drain pipe that allows water to spread through the rain garden area, which is defined by a retaining wall. Soil was filled in behind the newly constructed wall. The drain empties into a stone reservoir behind the wall; this enables large amounts of water during rain events to escape through the wall to the prairie, while breaking strong flow.
Marywood staff and residents, students from local Catholic schools, and WMEAC volunteers helped to construct the garden and get it ready for planting.
We spent quite a bit of time walking the Marywood grounds to find plants we could use in the garden. Using divisions of perennials from
The garden was designed with a combination of natives and traditional garden plants. We left some of the plants plenty of room to fill in...because we knew they would! We also put in some plants that may not do well in the rain garden, such as tiger lilies and blanket flower, but they were available from the beautiful gardens on the grounds and the instant blooms were lovely, so we gave them a try. Having learned lessons on previous gardens, we labelled the plants immediately. There will be no guessing next spring, and the labels will help educate visitors about the native species.
The garden was planted on July 28, 2004. The planting took about four hours, two to get the plants and divide them, and two to put them into the ground, water them, and label them.
Marywood plans to put an educational sign in the garden. Plants were donated by Rain Gardens of West Michigan's native plant nursery, Marywood, Rooks Landscaping of Ada, and JF New and Associates of Grand Haven.
Our thanks to the Dominican Center for providing us with this wonderful opportunity and demonstration site.
Also of interest at The Dominican Center at Marywood is the stormwater system for the new retirement building under construction at the corner of Fulton and Lakeside. There are three small rain garden detention ponds that break the flow of stormwater from the new building, and swales to and from these lead to a large detention pond, with overflow to Coldbrook Creek. This is to be planted with the same flowery prairie mix used at Aquinata Hall. The design was created by Randy Lemoine of the City of Grand Rapids stormwater department. The area will be seeded in the fall of 2004.