Staff at Hillermann's recently put in a rain garden behind Simmons Chiropractic at 1130 E. Fifth St. after the office expanded its parking lot. The garden is the first of its kind in the city.

A rain garden is a planted depression that controls stormwater runoff from impervious areas like streets or parking lots by allowing the rainwater to soak into the ground and be absorbed.

According to city code, when additional impervious areas are created, a developer either must contain the additional runoff in some way or pay a fee to the city's stormwater improvement fund. That fee must be equivalent to what it would cost for the city to place stormwater improvements on the site.

Dr. John Simmons, owner of Simmons Chiropractic, decided to find a way to reduce runoff instead of paying into the fund. All of the work was privately funded.

"I figure I could pay into the stormwater fund or spend an equal amount of money here and have this landscaping forever," Simmons said.

City Engineer Dan Boyce said when the chiropractic office decided to expand its parking lot, it created a small amount of additional stormwater runoff.

"One way to slow up stormwater is to mimic the preconstruction conditions," Boyce explained, "so they decided to use a rain garden and direct the extra runoff into the garden before it goes on into the street."

The 150-square-foot garden area behind the chiropractic office is about 2 feet deep.

Hillermann's placed several plants and mulch in the garden that are designed to thrive in wet environments. The plants and shrubs also are native to Missouri, which should help the vegetation flourish, it was noted.

"The plants have a better root system and the dirt pile is secured," Simmons explained.

In addition, a depression at the site helps collect and store some of the stormwater before it is absorbed.

The chiropractor said he was unaware of rain gardens before Hillermann's presented the idea to him.

"It's a new concept in the industry. The city put its blessing on it and I'm glad Hillermann's mentioned it," Simmons said.

Heavy rains this week allowed the new rain garden to be tested for the first time, the chiropractor noted.

"So far it's doing what it's supposed to be doing," he said. "Under the city code, we wanted to make sure we didn't pass on our stormwater runoff to our neighbors."

Boyce said before the idea of a rain garden was presented, the city intended to plant the area with grass.