paved paradise

everything gardens (me) recently designed and hosted a public park in honor of park(ing) day la to vocalize the need for more quality open space in los angeles.

In 2005, the Rebar group, a small group out of San Francisco, opened eyes worldwide by transforming a metered parking spot into a park-for-a-day in an effort to make a public comment on the lack of quality open space in American cities. Their goal was to reprogram the urban surface by reclaiming streets for people to rest, relax and play and to:

*Promote a critical dialogue among artists, designers, activists, citizens, corporations, and government regarding the need for urban open space and they way in which streets are currently used.

*Energize civic life by questioning basic assumptions about urban space while offering provocative and meaningful alternatives.

*Connect artists, designers, and activists with ways to permanently reclaim the street for people.

we had a great time and thank everyone who stopped by. we even made some press with a photo of our park on the cover of the la times, my roommates ashira and lauren making the park look so good!

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enjoy the photos!

lawn be gone!

i have been neglecting you, urban greening project blog. but this is because i have been so delighted out in the world doing the work!

my landscape design and installation business, everything gardens, has been blessed with great clients and opportunities in the organic gardening and permaculture realms here in los angeles. we are working to rid los angeles of those water hungry lawns and replacing them with native, edible, and drought tolerant landscapes that are both beautiful and functional.

below you will see the transformation of my most recent project in el segundo. this is a garden in which we focused on lowering the water consumption in my clients' 60x70' back yard, which was previously all lawn (dead lawn mostly), to a smaller 500 s.f. lawn with the surrounding focus on edibles and drought tolerant plantings.

here are the befores:





the durings:

we used permaculture methods to kill out that huge lawn and used only organic ammendments to build her soil structure.

and the afters:









also, she now has the following edibles to choose from:

apricots
lemons
oranges
advocado
mexican lime
kumquat
figs
tomatoes
chilis
eggplant
and so many varieties of herbs

we also added a drip irrigation system which runs on a weather controller (it knows when it is going to rain and waters accordingly) and all of the pavers were reclaimed concrete so we kept lots of typical waste material from going to the landfill! now there are so many butterflies and hummingbirds coming by to check it out... did i mention that i love my job?

new work

these photos are of a drought tolerant and succulent courtyard garden that i designed and installed in manhattan beach last week. plants include a variety of succulents including: jade, echievera, string of pearls, sedum, senecio, euphorbia "sticks on fire", and dwarf anigozanthos "kangaroo's paw."



this garden is beautiful and will only need watered every couple of weeks. a great resource for native and drought tolerant plants for southern california is be water wise.

green gardens

this past saturday i attended the 3rd annual green gardens tour featuring sustainable gardens in santa monica. the tour benefitted the virginia avenue project, a free after-school program that uses the arts along with one-on-one mentoring to help kids discover their full potential.

the goal of the tour, themed "the value of trees" was to highlight environmentally harmonius landscaping practices, and it did a great job at that. here is an excerpt from the booklet that i received at the tour:

"in natural systems, rainfall is caught by trees or shrubs and released slowly into the ground. this natural cycle produces nutrient, fresh water and clean air. even in a semi-arid landscape like early los angeles, the eco-system was in balance, providing everything that native people, plants and animals needed for a sustainable and prosperous life.

in the los angeles of today, we have interfered with the natural cycles of energy and water with thousands of square miles of concrete, asphalt, skyscrapers and residential neighborhoods. in this system, rainfall is channeled to our roadways, where it picks up...a toxic soup of pollutants and washes into the over-taxed storm drain system and out to our beaches and bays. very little water remains to replenish the water table for later use.

two important and expensive problems result from this: we must import billions of gallons of water each year, turning other regions into deserts; and we spend half a billion dollars on massive flood control projects.

in order to turn things around, we need to begin understanding los angeles as a living ecosystemm and working with nature to rehabilitate its ability to protect and meet our needs. trees are central to this rehabilitation."

so what constitutes a "green" garden? aren't all gardens green? well, these gardens were chosen for their use of recycled materials, climate appropriate plants, urban runoff systems, organic practices, wildlife friendly-ness, edibles, water efficient irrigation, green building practices, mulch, and lawn reduction.



below are photos that i took of some of the gardens. i'll be following up with a series on green landscaping and my experiences in designing through a whole-systems approach.

mushrooms in my room - day 18

i'm having babies!! wow!

mushrooms in my room - day 15

it's day 15 on my oyster mushroom experiment in my room, can't wait for them to bloom!

another day at work

please step into my office...ha ha.

one of tomas' neighbors has this grass couch outside of their house and we love it! learn how to sprout your own through readymade's tutorial.