The season’s first rains are pouring down, running off your roof, down your driveway and into the streets, storm drains, and ultimately to the bay and ocean. What if you could capture that runoff instead and use it for your garden, with the excess percolating downward to recharge our local aquifers and purifying the water as it passes through the soil? Learn how rain gardens keep water on site and can solve drainage issues. Find out what they are, how to construct them, and which California native plants are best suited for them.

Madeline Morrow is the Vice President of our Chapter of CNPS. A former computer programmer, she now volunteers in her community and works extensively on her native garden. Her garden was featured in Bay Nature Magazine in March 2013, and is regularly shown on the Going Native Garden Tour.