rain garden
n.— «But he knew very little about native plants until about five years ago, when he encountered for the first time the term “rain garden”—a phrase used to describe an intentionally created depression in the ground that is planted with native species. Its purpose is to hold rainwater, allowing it to soak into the ground, preventing runoff.» —“Mays: ’shamefully ignored’ natives” by Alma Gaul Quad-City Times (Davenport, Iowa) Jan. 18, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...