Wetland Gardens

	One of Durham's most popular city parks straddles Ellerbe Creek at the end of Indian Trail, just downstream from Hillandale Golf Course. In 1996, ECWA's future president met with a city parks horticulturist to discuss what to do with perennially wet areas of lawn that were bogging down mowing crews. Shortly thereafter, the parks department planted a rutted ditch next to the play equipment with plants adapted to wet conditions. The wetland garden was born. Due to poor maintenance, the garden soon began to go into decline, as intended plants occasionally got sprayed with herbicide along with the weeds. Neighborhood and ECWA volunteers then took over maintenance, and have since turned the wetland garden into a centerpiece of park landscaping. Drainage from the park's water fountain helps keep the area wet during droughts.
In spring, the soft rushes (Juncus effusus), sedges and irises are most prominent.
	Later on, lizard's tail, rescued from a planned city sewer right of way, fills the garden with white tassels. These in turn give way to cardinal flower, buttonbush, and the brilliant purple disks of joe-pye-weed. Swamp sunflower kicks in with its dazzling yellow blooms in the fall.
Last year, through propagation of the original plant materials, ECWA volunteers extended the wetland garden to other areas of the park--areas that often remain flooded all winter and are difficult to mow for most of the spring. In floodplain parks like Indian Trails Park, you can often find native wetland plants trying to grow up through the grass. Rushes grow in bunches, are shinier than grass, and when mowed will look like dark clumps with brown tips. When lots of these clumps of rushes show up in a mowed area, it usually means that spot is trying to become a wetland. By digging out or mulching over any grass, leaving the rushes to grow, and adding various native wetland species like Hibiscus, joe-pye-weed and cardinal flower, it's possible to make a wetland garden with little trouble. A border of mulch cues mowing crews to steer clear. Maintenance involves keeping out pesky weeds like Japanese stilt grass (Microstegium) and creeping charlie. If bermuda grass is part of the surrounding lawn, that too must be kept from encroaching. Although some watering may be needed with new plantings, the periodic doses of rainwater that linger a day or two in these lowland areas should sustain the gardens through droughts, once established. Mulch, which can take the form of leaves collected and stockpiled in the fall, helps with both controlling weed and maintaining soil moisture. Another good location for wetland gardens is next to roads, as an alternative to the more customary and dangerous steep-sided ditch. A demonstration of this was planted in spring 2001 across Albany Street from Indian Trail Park, alongside Perennial Drive. Instead of a dangerous, steep-sided ditch, a swale was fashioned and then planted with wetland wildflowers. For spring, 2002, a group of volunteers in Forest Hills are working with the Durham Property and Facilities Management department to create a wetland garden using drainage from a new water spray feature. Forest Hills Park, though not in the Ellerbe Creek watershed, is another of Durham's floodplain parks ripe for beautification in this way.