Watershed Center Rain Garden
Springfield, Missouri
Photos: Marra Holt
Size: Approximately 3,750 square feet (about 140 feet long and 30 feet wide)
Year established: 2008
Year inducted: 2024
Category: Professionally managed with volunteer assistance
Maintained by: Watershed staff and volunteers
Entrance Fee: None
Description: This little island of nature has provided countless “nature moments” for staff and visitors. The serviceberry trees on the edge provide delicious berries that are a delight to pick and eat in late spring, and several of the plants are absolute pollinator magnets.
The Watershed Committee partnered with a local Sierra Club chapter to construct the rain garden, which was completed in 2008 and offers a jolt of nature as one walks toward the Watershed Center.
The Watershed Center embraces a natural aesthetic, rather than a “flower bed” aesthetic, with this garden. It is maintained with a distinct mulch border around it, while the native plants are allowed to grow naturally within the border. Once a year, toward the end of winter, the garden is either mowed or burned with prescribed fire. Periodically woodies and invasive species are cut and treated. The garden continues to improve over time, as new native species are added from the Watershed Natives nursery, increasing the garden’s diversity.
What Makes this Garden Excellent:
This rain garden has allowed hundreds of thousands of gallons of water to recharge the aquifer, and provides an excellent example of a designed landscape that mitigates stormwater while also creating habitat for wildlife in an aesthetically pleasing space.
Examples of Wildlife Spotted Here:
An array of birds, including American goldfinches, purple finches, rose-breasted grosbeaks, Northern cardinals, wood thrushes, woodpeckers, hummingbirds, and red-winged blackbirds
Butterflies, including monarchs, buckeyes, and skippers
Dogbane beetles
White-tailed deer (have bedded in the garden!)
Ten Great Native Plants to See Here:
Amelanchier arborea (serviceberry)
Apocynum cannabinum (dogbane)
Cephalanthus occidentalis (buttonbush)
Phytolacca americana (pokeberry)
Platanus occidentalis (sycamore)
Silphium integrifolium (rosinweed)
Silphium perfoliatum (cup plant)
Veronicastrum virginicum (culver’s root)
Zizia aurea (golden alexanders)
Native sedges
Signage: Interpretive signs about “Water-Smart Practices” and “Rain Gardens” are stationed near the garden.
Accessibility: An accessible bridge crosses through the middle of the rain garden, allowing visitors to become immersed in plants and wildlife.
Location:
2400 E. Valley Watermill Rd.
Springfield, MO 65804
Coordinates:
37°15’58.3″N 93°14’50.1″W
37.266206, -93.247245
For More Information:
Contact person: Mike Kromrey
mike@watershedcommittee.org
Learn more about the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks and the Watershed Center.