From swamp to lab, our team created stormwater to test raingardens.

Last month, more than twenty litres of thick sediment was collected from a local Melbourne swamp as we prepared water that could simulate stormwater to test our nursery raingardens.

Lab tests of this sample revealed that it was missing some important nutrients, so we prepared some additional ingredients including potassium phosphate, potassium nitrate and ammonium chloride. We only needed a very small amount of these, and once we mixed it with the swamp sediment and lots of water, we were able to produce representative stormwater.

Simulating stormwater is important to determine whether raingardens made from upcycled hard waste can be used to filter out pollutants in an urban environment.

Follow @remixraingardens on Instagram for more behind-the-scenes footage.

We’ll share findings from the stormwater tests soon.