RAIN BARRELS

Water running through our pipes and garden hoses isn’t free, but rain sure is when falling from the sky. What if you captured some of that rainwater to use on your native wildscape or garden? Try hooking up a rain barrel below your rain gutters so you can collect some of that wet stuff falling from the clouds. That natural rainwater can get your plants through short periods of drought without the chlorine that’s in city water. There are two challenges with maintaining most rain barrels: leaves and mosquitos. You can add a leaf-catcher to your rain barrel pipes to trap the leaves, pine straw, and acorns to keep them from falling into your rain barrels. For more info, see epa.gov/soakuptherain/soak-rain-rain-barrels.

For mosquitos, add some fine-mesh wire to openings in the rain barrel to keep out the mosquitos and then add some non-toxic mosquito floats inside your barrels to help keep mosquitos from multiplying. Have the rain barrel ready to water those plants so they, in turn, can provide cover and food for your backyard critters. Look for rain barrel designs and supplies online or look in your local hardware or feed store – you can go do it yourself or search out companies that make larger decorative barrels. Do it for the owls.

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