Do you love the Truckee River?
Here’s 3 ways to care for it, without leaving your neighborhood.
Take a quick survey about your yard - and be entered to win $100 in our prize drawing.
Click here to complete the survey and enter the drawing.
2. Visit Lake Park - a new destination to enjoy and explore
Floating wetlands that enhance plant diversity, improve pollinator habitat, and create a beneficial underwater ecosystem.
Native plants in the demonstration garden changing with the seasons... consider how they would look in your yard?
More lake bank planting coming soon.
3. Learn more about River Friendly Living.
Visit Lake Park's River Friendly Living (RFL) Demonstration Garden, watch native plants change with the seasons… and consider how they might look in your yard.
Want help making RFL changes at home? Contact us at info@onetruckeeriver.org or or 775-450-5489
Or, learn more about River-Friendly Living Practices online: including Preventing Water Pollution, Spring Firescaping, Native Plant Alternatives, How to Design & Install a Mini-Meadow, and how your home garden can help keep the Truckee River clean and beautiful.
Funded by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and Nevada Division of Environmental Protection with support from the City of Reno and Friends of Lake Park.
Native Plant Alternatives for 5 Common Landscaping Plants
River-Friendly Yards seek to protect the Truckee River from afar, both by using water wisely and by reducing pollutants that could flow down the storm drain and into the river. We can achieve both of these goals by using more native plants in our yards.
Native plants are adapted to our local climate and soils. This means that they usually require less water and fertilizers than many common landscaping plants. If you incorporate them into your yard, that can save you money on your water bill and reduce the potential for fertilizers and pesticides washing down the storm drain. They also provide more habitat and food resources for local wildlife and pollinators.
Water Pollution, Be Part of the Solution
It looks like warmer weather is headed our way, and who doesn’t love to visit the Truckee River on a warm summer day? We are so lucky to have a clean river to swim in or picnic by, but we all have to do our part to keep it that way and reduce water pollution. And it starts in our yards.
We’ve talked a bit about non-point source pollution before (check out our Stormwater 101 blog), but when it comes to our yards, there are a few pollutants of concern you can really help reduce: nitrogen and phosphorus.
Spring Firescaping Tips
The past few smokey summers in the Truckee Meadows show that fire prevention is important for our region. And if we consider the trend of the past few years and the predictions for the following wildfire season, it makes sense to be proactive. And the “season” has now widened to pepper an entire year. Consider the wildfire that broke out in the area between Denver and Boulder, Colorado on December 30th of 2021. December 30th. No one would have ever imagined a wildfire in the dead of winter. . . in Coloradono less, but dwindling precipitation rates combined with wind in the arid west are making the unimaginable, heartbreakingly, a reality.
How to Design & Install a Mini-Meadow
A mini meadow is just what it sounds like - a miniature meadow for your yard. They are a small depression designed to capture rainwater that flows off your roof via downspouts and sink it into the ground. In many places in the world, these features are referred to as rain gardens. But here in the Truckee Meadows, we think it’s more appropriate to call them ‘Mini Meadows’ because they mimic the natural meadows and seasonal wetlands that once covered large portions of the Reno/Sparks area.