Plant selection - notes and images

9/9
From Terry

Suggested plants for a Rain Garden in our area (Louisiana)

The following would be recommended for a Full Sun Rain Garden

Aphrodite Althea – Hibicus syriacus

Arrowwood viburnum shrubs – Viburnum acelrifolium

Beautyberry – Callicarpa americana

Blue flag iris – Iris virginica var, shrevei

Butterfly bushes - Buddleja marrubiifolia – LA Super Plant

Copper Iris – Iris fulva

Elephant ear plants - Colocasia

Lilyturf – Liriope muscari

Louisiana Swamp Iris varieties: “Wild Cajun”, “Cajun Sunrise”, “Bayou Sunset”,

“Full Eclipse”, and “Sun Fury”. There are hundreds of varieties – in 1941 Society forLousiana Irises was formed.

Marshmallow – Hibicus moscheutos

Marsh marigolds – Caltha palustris var, palistris

Pickerel weed – Pontederia cordata

Pitcher plant - Sarracena

Rush – Rhynchospora colorata

Swamp Hibicus – Hibicus grandiflorus

Swamp Milkweed – Asclepias incarnata

Swamp Sunflower – Helianthus angustifolisis

Sweet shrub - Calycanthaceae

Two-winged silver bell – Halesia diptera Ellis

Wild bergamot – Monarda fistulosa

Winter berry holly – Ilex verticillata

Sources:

Jan Goldfield, The Pondlady – jan@pondlady.com

LSU Research Center in Hammond

Theamericanirissociety.blogspot.com

Clemson.edu

Magnoliagardensnursery.com

Rockydale.wordpress.com

I would like to show a picture of these plants either before or after the name. They can be found on the internet, I just don’t know how to retrieve them to place with the names!

Hi - found this posting from a gardener in Slidell, dated 2007. She has postings through 2012; maybe she can speak to you, or will respond to an e-mail about plant selection?
http://pondlady.blogspot.com/2007/06/plants-for-your-rain-garden.html


(From Terry - posted to Facebook page 8/26)

Terry Francis Pizzalato I will contact someone at the LSU AgCenter in Hammond about suggested plants for use in the rain garden. I will offer suggestions for the area that Gary will design. I'll post when I get some scoop! See you all Thursday!

(To Terry on 9/2/2014)

Dear Terry,

I’m attaching one photo of the water garden at LSU Ag’s Hammond research station, taken today. The plants I noted in the garden were as follows:

Blue Flag (large clump with spearlike leaves in foreground of photo)

Two-winged silver bell (behind the iris)

Pitcher Plant (these were not doing well – they looked kind of burned)

Pickerel weed (looked great)

Winter berry holly

Rush (Juncus species)

Copper iris (these looked dead)

Beautyberry (not doing well)

Button bush

(?) River Birch (the tree planted in the center)

There is also a fairly lush shrub just to the left of the blue flag in the photo. I was not able to identify this plant. It has camellia-like leaves but did not have buds, so I don’t think it was a camellia.

The rain garden at this site is at the elaborate end of the scale for rain gardens. Allen Owings, who led our tour today, described it as follows: a drainage pipe collects water from the parking lot (about 50 yards distant from the rain garden) and sends that water to an underground reservoir that lies below the rain garden. When the reservoir fills, it overflows at the top, creating a temporary pool in the garden. This is different from most of the models we’ve seen, wherein water flows directly into the rain garden from above, either by means of a pipe,  by collecting water from sloping ground, or by some combination of the two.

Dr. Owings was very approachable and would probably be delighted to answer any questions about appropriate plantings or about the design of this particular garden, or to direct you to whoever developed the garden. His email is aowings@agcenter.lsu.edu . He lists his phone numbers as  (985) 343-4125 (land) and (225) 603-8096.

Other group members, please chime in if you have any additional information about this garden from our tour.

Lili

LSU Hammond Rain Garden

2014/09/08: Below are images taken today at the Common Ground Relief Wetlands Restoration nursery on Deslonde Street in the lower 9th ward. All of these trees are suited to wetlands planting and would presumably work in a rain garden. I could identify bald cypress, pond cypress, bay tree and I think some kind of gum tree. There's also a tree that looks like a kind of magnolia. Perhaps Lee and Sarah could help identify if group members don't know. 

common ground nursery - gum trees (?)

Common Ground nursery - magnolia?

common ground nursery - bay

There's also a great list of suggested plants for rain gardens on the Texas A&M website, rainwaterharvesting.tamu.edu