urban forestry grant brings rain gardens

The Cooperative Extension Service will put an urban and community forestry grant to work showing the benefits of rain gardens and trees along with the City of Mountain Home, the Mountain Home Tree Board, Baxter County Conservation District and Baxter County Master Gardeners in 2022.

The project is made possible by the United States Department of Agriculture and Arkansas Forestry Division, along with the extension water quality education program and local community interest expressed by Brad Runsick.

Rain gardens are interesting landscape features that perform a variety of services to communities.  Capturing runoff water, filtering pollutants from water, infiltrating water into the ground, providing habitat for pollinators, and adding beauty to a landscape makes the rain garden an all-star of gardens by many accounts. 

While this project will be installing the all-star of gardens and planting some nice trees around town, the real all-star to this project is the local volunteers in the Master Gardener and Tree City USA programs along with the City of Mountain Home.  Without proven, dedicated and interested parties in the beautification and conservation of our communities and environment this opportunity would not be possible. 

John Pennington,
Extension Water Quality Educator
University of Arkansas System
Division of Agriculture
Research and Extension

For additional information,
https://www.uaex.uada.edu/media-resources/news/2021/october2021/10-01-2021-Ark-green-parkinglot-grant.aspx​