The Port Washington Water District is excited to announce that it has received a grant from ReWild Long Island to create a native plants garden at District headquarters on Sandy Hollow Road.
Planting will begin this spring and the garden will serve as a stop along the 2024 PWWD and ReWild Long Island Sustainable Garden Tour, which is scheduled for this June. The location of the garden is perfect for the viewing of passersby and will serve as an educational tool from which residents can draw inspiration for their own gardens.
“Using native plantings in your garden is a fantastic way to keep your home beautiful while conserving water and supporting our environment,” said PWWD Commissioner Mindy Germain. “Our garden at the PWWD headquarters will serve as a demonstration and educational tool that our residents can use as inspiration for their own homes. We are greatly looking forward to watching our garden bloom this spring and summer and we hope to see more homeowners throughout our community take the same approach to home beautification.”
ReWild Long Island, a Port Washington-based organization that promotes sustainable landscaping practices throughout Long Island, is currently in the process of designing the garden. The grant it has provided to the PWWD covers all costs of materials and design, making it so that this project comes at no cost to the District’s ratepayers.
The garden is set to include plants such as summersweet, inkberry, cardinal flower, ostrich fern and more.
“It is always a pleasure for us to work alongside other environmentally-conscious organizations in our area to promote sustainable landscaping choices,” said Raju Rajan, president of the Board at ReWild Long Island. “We have worked with the Port Washington Water District on a number of projects that have been a great benefit to our community and we are proud to assist in making this garden a reality. We hope it helps to inspire others to follow in their footsteps and make sustainable choices when decorating their gardens this spring and summer.”
Plants native to Long Island are much more beneficial for the environment than those that are not native to the area. First and foremost, they require significantly less water to remain healthy, as their roots are adapted to go deep into the soil and retain moisture.
They are also much more friendly to the pollinators in the area, helping to sustain local wildlife and the benefits they provide to the region’s environment.
