Rain barrel hygiene! Have you been rain water harvesting without a clean up? Your rain barrel could use a good cleaning, its’ been a couple of years now right? Have you taken a good look inside your rain barrel lately? You may be surprised at what you find.

In the early winter months of every year things slow down enough for me to catch up on some office work and take a bit of time to attend industry events. The late winter/early spring of 2010 had several pond/landscape industry seminars traveling the country and one seminar, “Creating Opportunity with sustainable Landscapes” being held by Ed Beaulieu of Aquascape Inc., came into my area.

On February 18, 2010 I spent the day working on the first part of my Rain Garden Certification process through Rutgers University Extension. The first part of this process was spent doing class time. I was able to spend the day with several other candidates in a lecture hall meeting with and connecting with some of our areas top rain garden experts and professionals. Topics ranged from the basics of what is a rain garden to installation process, site selection, plants to use, benefits of rain gardens, regulations for rain gardens, as well as a panel of rain garden experts made available for us to field questions and an open exchange of ideas.