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Earth Day is more than a date on the calendar! It’s a gentle nudge to reconnect with the natural world around us, and a reminder that everyday actions can shape a more sustainable future. Whether you’re tending a garden, removing invasive plants, or picking up litter while out on a walk, these small steps add up to a healthier, more resilient planet. This year, our team found a few fun and meaningful ways to mark the occasion, and we hope this inspires you to get outside and get growing, too.
Spring is the perfect season to take action in your yard or community green space. Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or just starting out, here are a few tips from our team to help your garden thrive:
Looking for more tips? Princeton Hydro landscape architects Jamie Feinstein, RLA and Cory Speroff, PLA, ASLA, CBLP shared their top spring gardening tips in an "Ask Me Anything" Facebook live Q&A session, including:
To welcome spring and celebrate Earth Day, members of the Princeton Hydro team spent an afternoon outside tending the native garden bed at the Trenton headquarters. Located at the front of the building, the perennial planting area features climate-adapted, drought-resistant native species chosen for their ecological benefits and aesthetic appeal.
Although perennials return year after year, they still benefit from seasonal care. Tasks like weeding, pruning, and loosening the soil support strong root systems, encourage healthy growth, and help maintain a thriving, sustainable garden ecosystem. Recognizing the garden's significance and the value of collaboration, our team united to accommodate and nurture this year's growth.
Feeling inspired? Organizing a gardening day is a fun, low-cost way to give back to your environment and bring people together. Celebrate Earth Day 2025 by starting a garden, volunteering with a local environmental group, or organizing your own mini planting day with friends, family or coworkers.
Rain gardens are a beautiful, low-maintenance green infrastructure solution for managing stormwater, reducing erosion, and improving water quality by filtering pollutants before they reach local waterways. They also provide valuable habitat for pollinators and other beneficial wildlife.
Princeton Hydro President Geoffrey M. Goll, P.E. led a free public workshop on how to build a rain garden of your own. Hosted in Yardley, PA by the Lower Makefield Township Environmental Advisory Council as part of their Environmental Lecture Series, the session offered practical, approachable guidance for managing stormwater at home.
Using photos from his own yard, Geoffrey walked attendees through how he designed and installed a rain garden to reduce runoff and eliminate pooling water. He shared ten easy-to-follow tips and answered questions on plant selection, drainage strategies, long-term maintenance, and when and why to amend soil before planting.
Want to learn more? Watch Geoffrey’s full presentation and get inspired to create your own eco-friendly solution to stormwater management:
The real spirit of Earth Day lies in our ongoing commitment to care for the natural world, not just once a year, but in everyday choices and community actions. As Geoffrey quoted in his rain garden presentation, "Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world." – Howard Zinn.
Each July, we take time to reflect on the beauty, value, and importance of lakes during Lakes Appreciation Month. Since 1998, this national initiative founded by the North American Lake Management Society (NALMS) has encouraged communities to get outside, engage with their local waterbodies, and take action to protect them.
This year, we’re sharing four simple and meaningful ways to celebrate. If you're a lake regular or you're just starting to dip your toes into lake stewardship, you'll find something valuable here!
There’s no better way to appreciate your local lake than by exploring it up close. Take a morning paddle, enjoy a peaceful shoreline walk, or head out with a fishing rod and a friend. Lakes offer the perfect setting for adventure, reflection, and connection with nature. Whether it’s your first visit or your hundredth, there’s always something new to discover and appreciate at your local lake.
And thanks to digital tools, exploration doesn’t stop at the water’s edge. For example, in Pennsylvania, the Bucks County Conservation District, in collaboration with Bucks County Planning Commission and Princeton Hydro, recently launched an interactive ArcGIS StoryMap showcasing the Lake Luxembourg watershed and Conservation Pool Restoration Project. This interactive tool lets you experience the lake’s ecology in a whole new way. Take a deeper dive—without getting your feet wet—and check out the StoryMap here.
Join lake lovers across North America for the annual Secchi Dip-In, a citizen science event where volunteers collect water clarity data using a simple Secchi disk. This collective initiative helps monitor lake health over time and contributes valuable data to local lake managers and the broader scientific community.
Getting involved is simple—grab a Secchi disk, take a turbidity reading, and submit your data online using the Secchi Dip-in database. Need guidance on how to use a Secchi disk? Check out our instructional video for a step-by-step walkthrough:
Get creative and let your appreciation for lakes shine. Try your hand at Lakes Appreciation Month Bingo, make a short video, write a lakeside haiku, or paint a scene from your favorite shoreline. When you express your love for lakes through art, you can also inspire others to connect with and care for their local lakes.
You can also participate in the NALMS “Show Your Lakes Appreciation” Challenge. While you’re out enjoying your favorite lake, snap a #lakeselfie, capture a scenic sunset, or photograph your pet mid-paddle. Post your photo on your favorite social media platform with the hashtag #LakesAppreciation and include the name of the lake in your caption for a chance to win prizes and be featured online. The contest runs all month long!
Here's a winning entry from last year—a joyful shot of “Jo Jo the dog kayaking on Lake Michigan.”
Looking to make a tangible impact? Volunteer for a local lake cleanup, support your watershed association, or become a lake steward helping to monitor your lake's water quality, remove invasive species, and more! Even taking small actions in your own backyard, like reducing fertilizer use or installing a rain garden, can make a big difference for water quality.
Princeton Hydro has had the privilege of partnering with lake associations, municipalities, and nonprofit organizations across the country on a wide range of lake restoration and stewardship efforts. These partnerships show what’s possible when communities come together to invest in their lakes. Read about our recent collaboration with Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia.
Whether you’re picking up trash, attending a public meeting, or just learning more about lake science, your involvement matters.
Earth Day is more than a date on the calendar—it’s a gentle nudge to reconnect with the natural world around us, and a reminder that everyday actions can shape a more sustainable future. Whether you’re tending a garden, removing invasive plants, or picking up litter while out on a walk, these small steps add up to a healthier, more resilient planet. This year, our team found a few fun and meaningful ways to mark the occasion, and we hope this inspires you to get outside and get growing, too.
To welcome spring, members of the Princeton Hydro team spent an afternoon outside tending the native garden bed at the Trenton headquarters. Located at the front of the building, the perennial planting area features climate-adapted, drought-resistant native species chosen for their ecological benefits and aesthetic appeal.
“It was a fun chance to unplug, get our hands in the dirt, and connect with coworkers in a different kind of ‘team meeting,’” said Mikhail Velez, Communications Coordinator. “It’ll be exciting to see how the space fills in over the season, and we’re looking forward to doing small things throughout the year to keep it healthy and thriving.”
On April 12, Princeton Hydro President Geoffrey M. Goll, P.E. led a free public workshop on how to build a rain garden of your own. Hosted in Yardley, PA by the Lower Makefield Township Environmental Advisory Council as part of their Environmental Lecture Series, the session offered practical, approachable guidance for managing stormwater at home.
Happy Earth Day! It's important that we all do our part today and every day to honor our precious planet, promote climate action, and support sustainability. We've put together a quick list of fun ideas and helpful tips to celebrate Earth Day 2024:
Rain gardens are a cost effective, attractive, and sustainable way to minimize stormwater runoff and filter out pollutants. This aesthetic, low-maintenance addition to any outdoor landscape creates a functioning habitat that attracts pollinators, beneficial insects, and birds. It can also help reduce erosion, promote groundwater recharge, and minimize flooding.
Princeton Hydro President Geoff Goll, P.E. and his family recently installed a rain garden at their home. They documented the process with photos and step-by-step instructions.
You can help conserve water usage by incorporating water-wise practices into your daily life. Installing a rain barrel is a great place to start! Using a rain barrel to collect fresh, free rainwater helps save money, conserve water AND protects the environment. Collecting water in rain barrels is a fun, affordable and effective way to reduce the amount of run-off flowing into storm drains and waterways. We’ve put together four simple steps to help you install a rain barrel in your yard.
Tulips are starting to emerge, buds are blossoming on trees and, unfortunately, invasive plant species are also beginning their annual growing cycle. Invasive species create major impacts on ecosystems near and far, but we can all do our part to reduce the spread.
Princeton Hydro Landscape Architects and Expert Green Thumbs Jamie Feinstein, RLA and Cory Speroff, PLA, ASLA, CBLP led a live “Ask Me Anything” Spring Gardening conversation via Facebook. They provided gardening tips and tricks, including:
You can play a major role in maintaining the health and safety of your community. By committing to a regular litter pick-up schedule, you can help keep your neighborhood cleaner and decrease the amount of debris and pollution entering your community waterways. Consider choosing a nearby park, lake, pond or stream for your trash clean-up activities. Whatever spot you choose, pick the place that's best for you, invite friends or family to join you, determine a regular clean-up schedule, and stick to it!
As biologists, ecologists, environmentalists, and outdoor enthusiasts, all of us at Princeton Hydro take our responsibility to care for and respect our natural surroundings very seriously. We play hard and work hard to protect our natural resources for generations to come. Happy Earth Day!
If you’re looking for a way to solve drainage issues in your yard and put rainwater to good use, look no further than a rain garden. Rain gardens are a cost effective, attractive, and sustainable way to minimize stormwater runoff and filter out pollutants. This aesthetic, low-maintenance addition to any outdoor landscape creates a functioning habitat that attracts pollinators, beneficial insects, and birds. And, in a small way, it helps reduce erosion, promote groundwater recharge, and minimize flooding.
A rain garden is an excavated depression in the landscape that is planted with wetland or wet-tolerant plants. It captures a portion of stormwater runoff from a targeted area (i.e., rooftop, walkway, or driveway). Even if it intercepts the first one inch of rain and the rest overflows, it will still capture about 90% of the total annual rainfall.
The concept of rain gardens are becoming mainstream and there are many, many online resources to obtain design guidelines. In fact, even “This Old House”, a PBS stalwart, has an instructional page to help guide the design process!
"After repeated stormwater drainage issues near my home’s foundation due to flat topography, I opted to go the environmentally-friendly route of installing a rain garden in my front yard."
Princeton Hydro President Geoff Goll, P.E. recently installed a rain garden at his home and documented the process and put together step-by-step instructions on how to build your own:
Where does your stormwater flow? A rain garden is designed to infiltrate water, so it is best to build your rain garden in an area where rainwater will feed into it from downspouts, driveways or low points in your yard.
In order to determine if the soil at your selected location will readily infiltrate runoff, dig a few test holes. An optimal location will achieve one inch per hour of infiltration (i.e. the hole empties in 8 hours) and a good location will achieve one-half inch per hour (empties in 16 hours). If it is slower than 24 hours, you should consider a new location.
Determine the size and shape of your garden. Geoff chose a circular shape for his garden.
IMPORTANT! Before you dig, you MUST call your state’s dig-safe number (811) at least 72 hours before putting a shovel in the ground. It’s the law! They will mark-out your property for free so that you don’t unintentionally dig into any underground utility lines.
Depending on whether you will hand-dig your rain garden (as Geoff did) or rent a small excavator (you can rent one from Home Depot or local equipment rental centers), will dictate how much time the effort will take. Prepare your garden by removing all of the grass. If you can, separate the topsoil for later use or for other areas of your property.
Start digging out the area until you reach the proposed bottom depth. In some cases, you may have to dig a little further down to reach more adequate soils for infiltration. The sides of the hole should form a gentle slope toward the middle and create a berm around the perimeter that ensures the garden will hold water in when it rains.
Tip: For excavated soil that’s not reused in your rain garden, find it a home by filling in low areas in your lawn or stockpile it for later use.
Carve out a spillway by creating a small indentation in the berm of the rain garden, lining it with permeable weed control fabric, and filling it with decorative stone.The spillway will allow excess rain water to overtop and flow out of the garden should it overfill during a storm event.
Use some of the excavated soil to create a berm around the rain garden. Once depth for adequate infiltration is reached, begin filling the hole with sand, and continue to backfill it to the proposed final grade, making sure the bottom of the rain garden is 6 to 8 inches below the surrounding lawn. (Note: Geoff ordered 3 tons of sand for his project, however, this quantity will be custom to your site, so use your best judgement to determine how much you’ll need). Add leaf compost (about 4 lbs per square foot) to the top of the sand and hand-till the compost with a shovel to a depth of 12 inches.
Having native wetland or wet tolerant plants that can withstand periods of drought is the key to success. Use hardy perennial species with well-established root systems. For guidance, look to your local garden center and a niche plant nursery. Make the plant palette your own. (Note: Be on the lookout for deer resistant plantings if this is an issue in your area).
When it’s time for planting, place each plant 12 inches apart and dig each hole twice as wide as the plant plug. The crown of the plant should be level with the ground. Apply wood mulch over the bed. Water frequently until the plants are established. Later on, no watering will be necessary. The vegetation will fill in nicely over the next few seasons.
If you’re planning to connect your gutter to the rain garden, it’s a good idea to install the drainage pipe last so the project is not inundated with water after a rainstorm while it is still under construction.
It is very important to keep an eye on your rain garden, especially after rain, to ensure that it is emptying in a timely manner. The last thing you want is to have the neighbors complaining about the “mosquito pond” next door. Generally, all the water should be infiltrated into the soil within 24 hours.
“A week after I completed the installation of the rain garden, we received over 4 inches of rain within a 5 day period, and then, we were hit with Tropical Storm Ida with 4.29 inches of rain (from my home rain gage) in a period of less than 24 hours. The rain garden worked very well, and even after Ida, the rain garden infiltrated all the water retained in the bottom within an 8 hour period (about an inch per hour).”
Each season, pull weeds, remove debris, and replenish the mulch as needed in order to help retain moisture and block weeds.
[embed]https://youtube.com/shorts/7EJymwQYjy8?feature=share[/embed]
“During the construction, I’m sure my neighbors were judging the ugly hole in my front lawn. And, my wife even marked herself as “Safe from the Hole” on Facebook! However, when it was finished, she was pleasantly surprised at how pretty the rain garden looked and amazed at how it managed stormwater,” said Geoff. “If everyone in my neighborhood installed a rain garden, imagine the positive reduction in stormwater and flooding that would occur downstream. Plus, we’d have some pretty awesome looking native flowers and grasses around for the pollinators and wildlife.”
Volunteers recently gathered together at Clawson Park in Ringoes, NJ to install native plants in the park’s large stormwater basin and overhaul two of the park’s rain gardens, removing invasive weeds and planting beneficial native species.
By definition, a rain garden is a shallow depression that is planted with deep-rooted native plants and grasses and positioned near a runoff source to capture rainwater. Rain gardens temporarily store rainwater and runoff, and filter the water of hydrocarbons, oil, heavy metals, phosphorous, fertilizers and other pollutants that would normally find their way to the sewer and even our rivers and waterways. They are a cost effective, attractive, and sustainable way to minimize stormwater runoff. They also help to reduce erosion, promote groundwater recharge, and minimize flooding. Planting native plants helps to attract pollinators and birds and naturally reduces mosquitoes by removing standing water thus reducing mosquito breeding areas.
Once a rain garden has been established, it is low maintenance and typically only requires occasional weeding to remove any invasive species that may have cropped up. The recent volunteer effort, lead by Jack Szczepanski, PhD, Senior Aquatics Scientist, was an important step in maintaining the health and native diversity of Clawson Park’s rain gardens.
The park’s rain gardens and stormwater basins were originally designed and implemented by Princeton Hydro. Back in 2016, Eagle Scout Brandon Diacont had an idea to beautify Clawson Park and improve the park’s stormwater drainage issues. Princeton Hydro supported his vision by developing, permitting, and implementing a stormwater management project plan, which included the installation of multiple rain gardens throughout the park. In October of 2016, under the guidance of Princeton Hydro’s Landscape Designer Cory Speroff, MLA, ASLA, CBLP, a great group of volunteers gathered together and got to work bringing the project plan to life!
The Princeton Hydro team has designed and constructed countless stormwater management systems, including rain gardens in locations throughout the Eastern U.S. Click here for more information about our stormwater management services.
A volunteer effort, lead by the Middlesex County, New Jersey Parks and Recreation Department and the Rutgers Cooperative Extension, recently took place at Thompson Park.
Despite the rainy weather, 78 volunteers and members of the Youth Conservation Corps removed litter from the shoreline of Manalapan Lake, repaired fencing, made improvements to the park’s walking trails, weeded and mulched the park’s rain garden and native plant garden, and installed new plants in the rain garden.
The park’s rain garden was originally designed by Princeton Hydro Senior Water Resource Engineer Dr. Clay Emerson, PE, CFM. Rain gardens are cost effective, attractive and sustainable means to minimize stormwater runoff. They also help to reduce erosion, promote groundwater recharge, minimize flooding and remove pollutants from runoff.
By definition, a rain garden is a shallow depression that is planted with deep-rooted native plants and grasses, and positioned near a runoff source to capture rainwater. Planting native plants also helps to attract pollinators and birds and naturally reduces mosquitos by removing standing water thus reducing mosquito breeding areas.
Rain gardens temporarily store rainwater and runoff, and filter the water of hydrocarbons, oil, heavy metals, phosphorous, fertilizers and other pollutants that would normally find their way to the sewer and even our rivers and waterways.
On the day of the volunteer event, Central New Jersey received 0.44 inches of rain. "We got to see the rain garden in action, which was really exciting," said Princeton Hydro Senior Project Manager Kelly Klein, who volunteered at the event.
Volunteers from the following organizations participated:
The Middlesex County Parks and Recreation Department’s next public volunteer event is tomorrow (June 2) in Davidson’s Mill Pond Park.
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