"Greening" Wheaton's Evergreen School

Students, parents and staff at have been working for years towards this day, May 21, when teacher Lourdes Barden cut the ribbon to Wheaton's newest rain garden.

The rain garden captures and helps clean hot, polluted stormwater runoff from the school parking lot before it enters Sligo Creek.  The runoff flows into a vegetated swale that winds through the school playground.  By next spring, the garden should be fully vegetated with deep-rooted native plants. The plants, rocks, and soil along the swale should slow down and soak up the polluted runoff just as a healthy natural wooded area absorbs rainwater and lets it percolate slowly into a stream. Installing a rain garden in the playground is part of the school's efforts to bring nature into student's lives.  When the playground re-opened, the kids started jumping from rock to rock, quickly making the dry stream bed into a popular attraction. The ribbon cutting was part of the Montessori school's Spring Green Festival aimed at educating the surrounding community about environmentally friendly practices, goods and services. 

The students showcased their green projects, and local vendors participated. Beth Knox of Greener Than Green Landscaping, Green Scapes Landscaping Company, and a grant from Montgomery County's Department of Environmental Protection's RainScapes program also helped make this project happen. Click here to see post with photos.