Rain Gardens

Our Cost-Sharing Programs Protect Your Home and The River

We’ll share the cost to install a rain garden on your property to keep pollution out of the Elizabeth River. Together we’ll make the river cleaner and your yard beautiful. 

What A Rain Garden Will Do

Rain gardens use amended soil and native plants to slow, absorb and filter polluted runoff before it ever reaches the river.

• Reduce pollution
• Help prevent algae blooms
• Prevents standing stormwater and mosquito breeding
• Attracts butterflies, hummingbirds and other wildlife

What We’ll Do

• Free site assessment to determine if your site is suitable for a rain garden project 
• Project Design – $100 cost applied to total cost share after installation
• Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth: Cost share 50% of total project costs up to $2,000
• New! Virginia Beach: Cost share 75% of total project costs up to $3,500
• Elizabeth River Project staff will provide a long-term maintenance plan for the project

How to Apply

Application Period: Site Visit list is currently full. Please sign up for our waitlist.

Approval Process: Staff will review and respond to all applications after January 1, 2023

Target Installation: Early spring 2023 through early fall 2023. 

My garden is looking great. I’m really happy with all the plants – the selection, the placement. Bravo! On to clean water.

Lynn Gilbert
River Star Home

Apply Now