The 4th Annual Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase

The Mar Vista Community Council invites you to participate in the FREE fourth annual Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase - a citywide Earth Day celebration on Saturday, April 21st, 2012 from 10 am to 4pm. See the gardens already on the tour here.

The tour will showcase drought-resistant landscapes and edible gardens with sustainability features ranging from composting techniques to water capture practices. Urban farms range from aquaponic farming to chicken coops. This year the tour places special emphasis on the critical need for ocean friendly gardens and California native gardens that support much needed pollinators such as honey bees and monarch butterflies. See how creating outdoor rooms provides much more useful livable space than a traditional lawn and creates a sense of community.

This giant eco-festival will be comprised of approximately 80 private resident gardens broken into 6 compact self-guided walking tours throughout Mar Vista. On the heels of three wildly successful prior tours that topped 2,000 attendees last year, the Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase will include special guest presenters at many gardens to enhance your knowledge of sustainability in daily living. Especially valuable is the chance for guests to meet do it yourself gardeners who share knowledge and experience. This is truly a giant block party throughout Mar Vista and you will have a blast meeting your neighbors as you visit their gardens.

The Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase seeks to empower Los Angelenos to adopt environmentally conscious living solutions. With most people walking or biking their tours, there is a tremendous sense of community as residents throughout Southern California come to Mar Vista to celebrate our shared vision for a greener life.

Guest presenters on the tour include Surfrider Ocean Friendly Gardens, HoneyLove.org, Los Angeles County Master Gardeners and The Seed Library of Los Angeles. Landscape designers will be at many gardens to answer questions and share information.

Mar Vista can make a difference!

For more information please email sherri@marvista.org or jeanne@marvista.org. 

Media is welcome.

3983 East Boulevard - UP House

Urban Permaculture House

UP House is an urban permaculture farm and an intentional health and homesteading community education and activities center. They practice what they preach on a daily basis. For example - 

Local organic food sourcing

They are learning to grow as much food as is ecologically sustainable on their large suburban plot of land while also supporting local organic food initiatives in our community. 

Currently they have fruit trees (avocado, orange, tangerine, bananas, persimmon, peach, fig), several garden areas, self-seeding edible “weed” areas, monthly bulk local organic food, distribution and pick up location for the California CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), and two members working a booth for a vendor at the Mar Vista Farmer’s Market ( Dey Dey’s Best Beef Ever).

Future and Ongoing Projects – Building an efficient green house system, chickens, bees, aquaponics, and vending value-added products from our urban farm at the MV Farmer’s Market.

Intentional Community

These householders are highly involved with volunteer and activism in the realms of health, art and sustainability. Many members of the 11-member community are founders of, or highly involved in some of the most active and productive philanthropies in LA.

To name a few: Habitat for Humanity, Label GMO’s Initiative, LA Unified School District, Tree People, Venice Art Crawl, The Joyful Activist, Venice Community Gardens, City Repair, LIVIN’, and The Big P Project.

Health and Sustainability Efforts

• Six of the eleven members do not own cars and a seventh commutes to work by bike every day.
• Converting the front yard into a cityrepair.org style public space project with a COB bench, an activities/events kiosk, a community garden and an herb spiral.
• Built an outdoor kitchen and an amphitheatre out of re-purposed materials to host gatherings, potluck events and workshops.

Learn more. Check out their facebook page!

2571 Armacost Avenue

 The color and design of loose stones and rocks, the curves of the landscape and the fountain make this a special garden. Larger boulders and sitting rocks give the garden a relaxing, Zen feeling.

Re-landscaping of the front and side yards began in November 2009, with a goal of replacing all the grass with a rock-based hardscape and drought resistant garden. Their across-the-street neighbor (see 2564 Armacost), owner Linda Rose Levine of Rose in Bloom, is the landscaper.

An attractive line of lavender and New Zealand fax and loose gravel replaces the ugly, usually dead grass that “grew” next to the driveway.

Many butterflies and hummingbirds frequent the garden. Birds love the fountains. The garden also attracts small children who like to play with the stones.

An automatic sprinkler system waters the plants twice weekly using a minimal amount of water. The house has solar panels. Two barrels collect rainwater in the back yard and the owners use an area behind the garage for composting.

The owners removed most of the lawn in the backyard—retaining a small patch for the dog—and added a dry riverbed in 2005. The backyard will be open if fill-in landscaping currently underway is completed in time.

2564 Armacost Avenue

Photo credit: Izumi Tanaka Photography

The owner, a landscaper (Rose in Bloom) uses this garden as a testing ground to see what plants work in what areas as well as to push the envelope somewhat by planting unusual species and seeing how they grow…and how sustainable they are. Inspiration came from a desire to bring some unusual gems to client’s gardens, giving their gardens that extra pizzazz.

One “client” that has certainly benefited is the owner’s own family. There is movement in the garden everywhere. With four water features and fruiting vegetation year round, birds and other wildlife come and go constantly.

The pondless waterfall is a favorite. On spring and summer Sundays, the owners sit on a swing with their coffee and watch the water all morning. The waterfall draws people in. Many guests say it is so relaxing that they‘ve never sat still for as long as they do in this backyard.

The owners love the mixture of succulents and Mediterranean flowering plants. There are some very unusual plants. They wait all year for rare bulbs to display their once yearly blooms. One favorite, Draculuncus Vulgaris (a black lily), only lasts a week, smells like rotten meat, but is so beautiful that all is forgiven. Most of the year, the spider lily looks like an agapanthus but, when it blooms every August, hundreds of white flowers—with tendrils make them look like elegant spiders—cover it.

Trees include Japanese persimmon, orange and loquat. Alpine strawberries grow in pots; their tiny, tiny fruit is heavenly—the owners pick and eat them by the bowlful! Tomatoes, herbs, lettuce, blueberries and other vegetables grow in a small vegetable garden. Laura Taylor from LauraTaylor At Home will be on hand to talk about growing vegetables; she is an expert on growing hundreds of tomato varieties including heirlooms.

The carefully chosen plants thrive with deep but infrequent irrigation. The garden is watered once weekly in winter and twice weekly during the hot summer. Running the traditional sprinklers for two rounds of 5 minutes each—for a total 10 minutes—eliminates runoff and insures that the water goes deeper to the roots.

Photographer Izumi Tanaka—source of these garden photos—will be taking photos during the Showcase. Guest Janet Mitsui-Brown of The Joy of Feng Shui will explain the plant placements and how Feng Shui principles can improve a garden.

windward

11349 Victoria Avenue

After an extensive home remodel, this homeowner decided to create a drought tolerant front yard.  The Mar Vista Garden Club arrived with plants, tools, gloves and advice to help them start the project.  Almost two years later, their plants are healthy and thriving.  The garden continues to change as they add plants and hardscape.  There are primarily succulents and California native plants.  They have yet to put in a drip system, so they water by hand about twice a month.  This is a real “do-it-yourself” garden! 

3710 Mountain View Avenue

The front garden, once mere sloping suburban lawn

Terrace garden set under two Pittopsorum trees planted in 1951

All Photos:   Michael Moran, Tim Considine, and Steve Lacap

This garden is the summation of twenty years lived in one place, and reflects the changing inspirations of the two owners -  Katherine Spitz, AIA, ASLA, LEED AP (landscape architect of garden) Daniel Rhodes, Architect.  It is always a work in progress.  They have been inspired by the places where building and architecture become one - hedges are walls, trees are columns, paving stones are floors, and tree canopies are ceilings. Enjoy this profile of the garden by Lisa Boone in the LA Times before the tour!

The rear fountain garden, with view of Hidcote Garden (England) inspired twin "follies"

This garden has a strong architectural layout; composed of five discrete garden "rooms," it was inspired by the gardens of England (Hidcote), Italy, Japan, and most recently, Spain. Each room is animated by the sounds of water, and each has a distinct planting scheme.  The "keyhole" shape of the rear garden creates what is known as a “false perspective", enhancing the illusion of depth.  The front garden, influenced by the gardens of Japan, is also focused on a circular fountain, and is surrounded by shrubs that are being coaxed into the forms of cumulus clouds!


The garden has become more drought tolerant over the years, with each successive planting removing more lawn and replacing it with either California natives or compatible plants.  The simple drought tolerant palette of the Spanish gardens - myrtle, rosemary, lavender, and Cypress - have been particularly influential. The most recent addition to the garden, the circular fountain garden in the rear, is planted with their favorite California friendly drought tolerant plants - a distinctive change to the lawn that had been there since 1951! 

Some fun features:  Look for the hidden mirror! The wood pergola was built from columns found in the trash in Silver Lake. And the twin "follies" are used as a nursery and their translucent roofs become lanterns at night. And the frogs spit!

There is drip irrigation in the rear garden and the natives will not need additional water by the fall of 2012. The front garden has been weaned off water except for monthly in the summer.

Overview looking towards house

3338 Corinth Avenue

Going California green…a work in process

This is a corner house, so the front yard is large. The owners are transforming it, one section at a time, doing all the designing, digging and planting themselves. They are using primarily California native plants from nurseries at Theodore Payne Foundation and the Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens.

The project began in 2009 with the parkway strip on Kingsland Street. The owners removed the grass and planted a variety of low-growing California native shrubs as well as California poppy seeds. This was their test area. It is a beautiful success, and a lesson in what on a parkway.

Several of the low-growing manzanita shrubs grew more robustly than predicted and are happily blooming. Ashyleaf buckwheat reseeds itself and blooms in a range of beige to rosy pink flowerettes on long stems. Monkeyflower and blue penstemon add color in the spring and summer. The plant mix includes a few milkweeds and the owners now enjoying seeing Monarch butterflies throughout much of the year.

The owners are now redoing the Kingsland side garden, working on hardscaping with stepping stones and planting more California natives. Their goal is to have a beautiful flowering California native garden on the south side of the property requiring little water, low maintenance and no chemical herbicides.

They’ve installed a composter, purchased inexpensively at a City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation composting workshop. And they have some home-grown mulch from a tree that had to be removed.

Once the south side is done, the owners will begin work on the larger garden area on Corinth Avenue. Lots of digging ahead! Come and see how far they’ve gotten.

12734 Rose Avenue

The front yard of this well-designed, water thrifty garden includes a Blue Fescue (Festuca glauca) lawn that was installed in the early 1990’s.  That’s almost 20 years ago!  It has never been replanted, uses minimal water and still looks fantastic.

Just imagine how much water has been saved by this non-lawn over the years. And how about the CO₂ that has not been emitted by lawn mowers?  The lawn clippings that did not end up in the waste stream? The chemical lawn fertilizers that were not applied? 

The front garden planting, deck and irrigation system were designed by Jo Cunningham who has since moved to Eureka, CA.  The design brief: a garden that fit the climate, was easy to maintain and used minimal water. Over the years, the plantings and shrubs have changed, but the layout has not. Nicely established evergreen pear (Pyrus kawakamii) trees are original to the plan. The gravel was added 3 years ago to cover bare dirt and replace mulch.

The back garden was designed in 2000 by Nancy Giffin of Marina del Rey. Over the years, the design has not changed much but the plantings have been upgraded to more drought tolerant selections. The Gingko trees are original to the design.

The irrigation system was installed when the landscaping was done. The ground cover areas are watered by sprinklers and the trees and shrubs are irrigated by a drip system. 

2822 Barry Ave

These homeowners are pioneers in the sustainable living movement, having designed and maintained this climate-appropriate, blower-free garden for over twenty years.  The garden is composed primarily of California Natives, Edibles and Succulents.  It’s nice to know that, despite reducing water consumption by more than 50%, they still enjoy their nine rose bushes, watering by hose and watering can when needed.


They always have a good deal of wildlife, but some notable additions have been an ongoing display of Monarch butterflies with the addition of the milkweed plant. Visitors include a variety of birds including hummingbirds, ladybugs, bees, squirrels, a few possums and the occasional raccoon visit.

Their soil has enjoyed the benefitted greatly from twenty years of composting.  They will be happy to answer your questions, although the composting areas, in the back, will not be visible during the tour.

3465 Stewart Avenue

Featured in the LA Times by Lisa Boone - see more pictures here. 


This landscape designer owner of Elow Landscape Design and Build, Inc. designed the garden for their daughter. She wanted to bring wildlife into the yard. They have humming birds, butterflies, bees, squirrels. They also wanted her to be able to explore the yard, hide and play under trees. Everything is soft and durable enough for children. However the yard still maintains adult spaces and does not look like a play ground. When their daughter goes to bed, the grownups enjoy the space just as much. They live in a very small house so their yard becomes an extension of their home. It has been designed to allow them to live outside. 

They have incorporated lots of features that are green, easy to use, and beautiful. They used composite decking for their decks and reclaimed wood for our dining pergola as well as dining table and bench. Drip irrigation has saved them about $400.00 a month in watering. We have a 6'x6x'6 reclamation pit that catches excess rain water and releases it back into the yard. 

After careful research, they also incorporated synthetic turf which cut their water use down even more. It is made from recycled plastic and can be recycled. It is no longer made out of recycled tires that off gas. For those who have considered this alternative, this is a great stop to learn from a professional who made a studied, informed decision.

Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase Highlights Building Community with Gardens

Barry Ave 

People replace their turf lawns for many reasons: to help the environment, to use less water, to make room for fruit trees and other edibles, to create a beautiful outdoor space to enjoy with family, friends and nature. A perhaps unexpected benefit expressed by many participants in the Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase is creating community.

The do-it-yourself gardener at 2554 Federal Avenue calls his front yard a Victory Garden. He says “Often when a neighbor walks by or shows interest in the garden, I can pluck a sprig of rosemary or share a vegetable in the garden. With sharing becoming more scarce, I feel my garden has the ability to act  as a vehicle for people to re-connect and share.”

The grass area in front of 3201 Butler Avenue is being transformed into a veritable farm. According to the homeowners, a surprising side benefit of this conversion is the social aspect. They’ve met more people in the neighborhood than ever before. Neighbors stop by on the weekends to see what's going on…sometimes leaving with some excess zuchinni.

Growing edibles to share helps, but is not required for building community with gardens. Just puttering or sitting and enjoying the garden are often enough. Barbeques with friends, bird and insect activity, and encounters with friendly neighbors have all increased since completion of the garden makeover at 2561 Barry Avenue. The owner says he’s “met more neighbors in past year than in the previous 15 due to time spent enjoying the front yard and lower rise wall.” At3749 Redwood Avenue, a swing bench is the perfect place to meet the neighbors on a hot afternoon.

Redwood Ave.

The do-it-yourselfers at 11375 Matteson say, “Now that the biggest physical part of the work is done, we are discovering the many joys of puttering in the garden and growing some of our own food. Plus since we're out front for all to see, a side benefit has been connecting with neighbors and building community!”

Perhaps most immediate impact of the landscaping project at 13001 Morningside Way is the profound sense of wellbeing that the homeowners experience. A tire swing in the parkway encourages kids and parents to pause and view the garden while walking in the neighborhood. The owners encourage people to help themselves to fruits and veggies, always leaving some for the next person.

The edible garden at 4106 Marcasel Avenue provides much more than produce. The homeowners say, “It is a great learning experience for the kids and a way to meet neighbors.” Their garden is connected to a neighbor’s garden that gets different sunlight, so they grow different things and share.  “It has been one of the best parts of the garden,” they say. In the summer, they all sit out back between the gardens, enjoying a glass of wine and whatever delicious dishes they can create from their bounty. The children play and the parents have some grown up time together. 

On Saturday, April 21, 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., the community of Mar Vista celebrates Earth Day by inviting the wider community to visit some of its wonderful gardens. At the free 4^th Annual Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase you’ll see a wide variety of mostly turf-free outdoor spaces and meet professional and do-it-yourself landscapers as well as presenters from various environmental organizations. Learn the stories behind the gardens. Share gardening tips with owners and guests. Save the date! Come and experience community.

January 31st is the deadline to add your garden to the tour!

12579 Westminster Avenue

This homeowner is the owner of Gardenerd and will be available to answer questions about vegetable gardening and composting.  They just added a few chickens to their urban homestead and will be sharing their experiences with tour goers!

The backyard organic vegetable garden will be featured on this year’s tour, but be sure to check out the front yard’s use of California natives and drought tolerant plants as you pass through.  What makes the front yard unique is the mini orchard of citrus and stone fruit trees. 

The backyard vegetable garden features 3 rain barrels (with room for 5) that they use to water the plants, allowing them to turn off their drip irrigation system from November through April each year. They utilize a 3-bin composting system plus a worm bin to turn kitchen, garden and coop waste into nutrient-rich soil and fertilizer.

They have a sprinkler system that runs on a timer in zones. With the clay soil and slow drainage, they have found that watering every 5 days was all it needed (4 minutes max). The fruit trees get watered once a month.

This is a unique opportunity to get advice about organic gardening from a master!

Windward Learning Garden 11350 Palms Blvd.

Students harvesting onions

WindwardLearning Garden, located at the eco-friendly school of the same name, was the brainchild of some very committed students and their advisor, Samantha Lyon, who is a certified Permaculture Designer. The Green Club and the Community Service Committee were interested in composting the food waste from the cafeteria, recycling, and starting an edible garden. This hand-watered garden was started in the fall of 2010. It is an elective class for both middle and high school students, and meets twice a week to do garden projects. Art teacher Hannah Northenor teaches the middle school gardening class, and Samantha the upper school's. It’s also an opportunity for students to have fun! The school garden movement is growing at an amazing rate, and Windward is committed to green initiatives and interactive learning for students. Because it is linked to the Community Service Department, students are encouraged to be active in their community through gardening as well. Check out a video of the garden 

NOTE - PLEASE ENTER ON BUTLER - SEE MAP

3558 Military Avenue

After the house was extensively remodeled, the garden was a construction zone. The owners were therefore able to start from scratch. Their goal was to create front and back yards that required little maintenance yet gave some space to play with fruit trees and vegetables.

They decided to remove the remaining grass, replacing it with artificial turf and an expanded garden bed area.

A low water, low maintenance cactus and succuclent garden dominates the front yard. The backyard has raised beds for vegetables, fruit trees and a new patio area. Bamboo planted on one side of the backyard will eventually provide some privacy.

Sprinklers water the front yard and the backyard has a drip system. The owners supplement the drip system by hand watering as required.

The owners did not have time in the past to play with vegetables and have really enjoyed planting them and watching them grow this past year. Last summer—their first—they experimented with squash, tomatoes, lettuce, bush beans, radishes, eggplant and okra. In the winter they planted winter tomatoes, lettuce, snap peas, snow peas, herbs, kohlrabi and blueberries. They are trying to grow Hawaiian papayas from seed and have a Babaco Papaya from Ecuador.

12833 Rose Avenue

The designer who created this beautiful floral oasis started gardening in 3rd grade after falling in love with her grandmother's vegetable garden in Canada. Having a background as a fine artist – her plants are her medium. People don't realize there's a whole spectrum of just the color green alone. Be enticed by her combination of colors, shapes and textures to form many rich layers of beauty.

This designer began with a very loose plan and then added plants. If the plant worked--great, if not then it was moved somewhere else. That's one big aspect the designer loved about gardening--it's always changing.  Like any other responsible green gardener, she incorporated native plants, drought tolerant plants and all kinds of succulents. One of her joys of gardening is creating new plants with cuttings. In fact, a majority of the plants in her garden were from cuttings. 

Neighbors and even people beyond her neighborhood love this garden. Strangers come to her door to enquire about a flower they have never seen before. Her enthusiasm for gardening literally grows on other people.

Any extra moment she can grab from her busy schedule, this designer loves spending time in her garden. Surprising to most, she hand waters her garden, sometimes even using a water pitcher. She finds this therapeutic and saves water. Come and visit this fun garden and get some amazing cuttings.

3741 Moore Street

Photos -  Carter Mays

These front and back yards contian a bevy of flowers in a jumble of colors, with both California natives and other drought tolerant plants included to create an exciting, yet natural effect.

The front yard of this Do-It-Yourself garden started in the summer of 2009, following up with the backyard in the Fall of 2011.  This makes it a new garden and it needs to mature, so that when you look across the garden the eyes will eventually see plants at all heights. Currently a single mature tree in the backyard draws attention, while newer plants continue to grow and fill in the space with color accents.

The garden started with a base of decomposed granite ("DG") to replace the lawn.   The homeowner planted drought tolerant flowers all around in a doughnut shape. The homeowner researches plants as a hobby, looking for Mediterranean, Californian, Texan, Arizonan or Mexican flowers that might fit into the garden.  After identifying the plants online it, this “gardening detective” found it surprisingly easy to locate flowering shrubs at local nurseries.

After doing all the planting without professional help, the homeowner has continued to do all of the maintenance without outside assistance. Because there is no outside gardener to help out, the garden was planned with easy upkeep in mind. Maintenance requires about one hour of work per week to check on any weed growth and/or to prune the plants a bit.  No mowing or leaf-blowing is done.  What a pleasure for everyone! 

3213 Maplewood Avenue

Preview this garden in this article on Fresh Dirt - Sunset Magazine!

What is unique about this front yard is the sculpture garden. The owner’s mother, Siv Cedering, was a Pushcart Prize winning poet. When she died two and a half years ago, the decision was made to honor her by installing her "poetry sculptures" to be enjoyed by her family, friends and neighbors. The grass was removed from everywhere.


The sculpture in the photograph above greets visitors as they approach the front door. It is hung above a fountain and looks out on a driveway of octagonal slabs of cement. When the driveway was originally conceived in 2000, grass was planted between the slabs, and it required watering. Now, river stones separate the slabs.


A large sculpture consisting of engraved stepping-stones and small boulders now fills the front yard and the strip that separates the street from the sidewalk. The grass was replaced with bark mulch and scattered plantings of succulents, which only require light watering once a week. Visitors discover the playful sculpture by stepping on stones that are each engraved with one word. "In", "My", "Garden", "There", "Is" - which lead them to boulders, which are engraved. On the front of one you read, " A TIGER" and on the back, "LILY", A QUEEN/BEE, A BIG BULL/FROG, A DRAGON/FLY/ A POLKA DOTTED LADY/ BUG, ETC.


According to the owner, "It feels great to cut down on water usage knowing we live in a desert. Beautiful spaces can be made without using much of it. And there is nothing better than seeing children and adults who didn’t know her discover the writings on the stones and delight in my mother's love of both nature and language!”

2554 Federal Avenue

This unique garden is primarily edible. It is truly a reflection of today’s economy, demonstrating that with the onset of inflation and "tough times" we can be more reliant on our very own Victory Gardens. The owner enjoys eating fresh and unique produce plucked from the garden.

This is a do-it-yourself project. Edibles grow within and around raised beds. Repurposed metal buckets set in the ground serve as containers for herbs. A larger metal bucket filled with gravel directs water from the rain chain into the ground.

Since it is in the front yard, the garden is a resource for sharing. Often when a neighbor walks by or shows interest in the garden, the owner plucks a sprig of rosemary or shares a vegetable. With sharing becoming more scarce, the owner feels this garden is a vehicle for people to re-connect and share.

3417 Cabrillo Blvd

This beautifully designed garden has inspired many neighbors to pursue a lawn-free front yard.

The owners bought their home in 2006 and wanted to create a low maintenance front yard with a natural and woodsy feel.  The use of natural and organic materials was very important to their plan.  The have pebbles and boulders from Indonesia mixed into the landscape with recycled furniture from their far-flung travels to complete the idyllic feel.

The garden has morphed into a wonderful space where they make use of a private deck with beautiful succulents and Podocarpus Henkelii on the side and Silver Sheen Pittosporum in the front. 

The front portion of the yard has a small cluster of birch trees with red kangaroo paws flanking a rock fountain.  The elegant fountain has become a playground for birds. The garden also boasts regular visits from hummingbirds.

To add color, they planted a short row of Hot Cocoa Roses in front of the low wall.  These plants can get by with watering 1 or 2 days per week depending on the time of the year.

Other plants used: Dymondia for the ground cover and Flax for the front strip. The Landscape Designer is  Mike Mendoza Arborist of M&M Gardens.