Learn how to create a sustainable backyard oasis with rainwater harvesting
Learn how to create a sustainable backyard oasis at WMG’s six-part Hydrate Phoenix project series at SunUp Brewing Co in Central Phoenix. Each presentation includes a mini-project to create an action plan for your home.
Hydrate with happy-hour priced local craft brews, and soak in knowledge about greywater, composting, and building a rain garden. Join us for your favorite topic, or attend the full series to build a comprehensive site plan.
Beginning on October 13, the series will run every Tuesday night from 6:00-7:30pm – come early to order snacks and drinks and settle in.
Series Schedule - click on a link to register for an individual session or register for several at once
- October 13 | Hydrate Your Home & Community – Create a water budget for your home and give water back to your community
- October 20 | Hydrate Your Plants – Create a beautiful landscape with native plants and trees
- October 27 | Hydrate Your Yard – Harvest the rain with only a shovel
- November 3 | Hydrate Your Food – Use rain tanks to support your vegetable garden
- November 10 | Hydrate Your Soils – Turn waste into resources and build healthy soils
- November 17 | Hydrate With Greywater – Harvest greywater to complete your backyard oasis
Session descriptions
Hydrate Your Home & Community
Phoenix gets about 8 inches of rainfall per year – but do you know how many potential gallons of harvested rainwater that translates to? We’ll show how you can harvest thousands of gallons of water each year at your own home to use less water from the city and save on your water bill. Then, we’ll use your new water budget to match up your harvested water to native plants, desert trees, and even citrus trees you can grow in your yard. Hydrate project: Water budget and action plan for your home
Hydrate Your Plants
How can you create a beautiful, lush landscape while conserving water? WMG’s guest speaker from the Desert Botanical Garden will show you how to select native plants to build wildlife habitat, shade your home, and create an appealing landscape for your yard. Hydrate project: Plant plan for your home – a list of the types, locations, and functions of native plants you will use
Hydrate Your Yard
This session is all about WMG’s 3 “S”s: slow, spread, and sink. Learn how to use passive rainwater harvesting to create a series of berms, basins, and swales that will direct rainwater to beneficial use for plants while reducing flooding and erosion in your yard. These practices will slow the flow of the water, spread it across the areas where it’s needed, and sink it into the ground. Hydrate project: Rain garden sizing & placement
Hydrate Your Food
Rain tanks are like rain barrels, only upgraded: bigger, better, and your harvested rainwater lasts longer. While most rain barrels hold about 50 gallons of water, rain tanks can hold 1,000 gallons or more, capturing water from several storms and storing it for use over the course of many drier months. WMG will show you how to use rain tanks as an active form of rainwater harvesting to nourish your vegetable and herb gardens throughout the year. Hydrate project: What size of tank do you need to support your garden?
Hydrate Your Soils
Urban yards have the potential to produce well beyond their natural productivity without needing costly store products by integrating the use of typical waste streams such as greywater, stormwater, plant trimmings, and more. You’ll learn how to assess your yard’s soil type and simple ways to effectively use typical household wastes to build soil health and promote productive urban landscapes. Hydrate project: Soil resource plan
Hydrate With Greywater
Did you know that an average household’s laundry water produces enough greywater to support a backyard fruit tree? We’ll show you how to use a laundry-to-landscape system to recycle this greywater for use in your yard to nourish plants and reduce your municipal water usage. This session will cover best practices for greywater use and will guide you to creating a greywater action plan for your home. Hydrate project: Greywater action plan
Please email Lindsay Ignatowski at lignatowski@watershedmg.org with any questions, or if your business would like to sponsor these events.
