Summer 2013 monsoons bring a bountiful rainwater harvest

July and August rains have been very generous this year in Silver City. Silva Creek Botanical Gardens water harvesting diversion was created in 2006. Many hundreds of volunteer hours have been spent planting and tending the native plants that grow here from harvested rainwater. Stormwater runoff from a 75 acre neighborhood subwatershed used to go out of town in the Big Ditch. Now it irrigates the garden, which gets better and better each year.

On Cheyenne Street a driveway between two houses was shortened by one parking space to create a rain garden. Dave and Katherine are stoked about their curb cut on Montana Street which fills four large basins in a good rain. At the 10th Street entrance to Western New Mexico University, native plants and wildflowers thrive on harvested rainwater from 5 curb bore holes. A riot of wildflowers flourish on runoff frim a dirt cul-de-sac on North Grant Street. Mark Cantrell from Lone Mountain Natives checks a Desert Sage he supplied for a project on E Street in Silver City.