12450 Barbara Avenue

I am so excited to be Chair of the revitalized Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase for 2018 and hope you will visit my garden (front and back are open). Reps from the LADWP will also have a table talking about all the great rebates that are available through the city (cash for turf, irrigation, free trees, etc.).
As you can see from the "before" shot, when I bought the house in 2013, it had a boring lawn, some roses here and there with no beds, pavers, shrubs or drought-tolerant plantings. That blank slate was great in many ways as I could create my own vision. But it also produced in me a horrible period of paralysis. I didn't know what to do and felt overwhelmed. Here's my biggest tip if you find yourself in a similar situation: PINTEREST ROCKS!!! I just devoured hundreds of images of sustainable gardens and pared down what might work for me. And I recalled many of the gardens I had visited on previous Mar Vista Garden Showcases. I was so lucky that a wonderful landscape designer named Michael Todoran lives in my neighborhood and I hired him to create the actual plan for my front garden. Then my longtime gardener Henriis Caballero took over and did the plantings, created the porous fence, installed the drip irrigation system and hopseed perimeter, and laid down the decomposed granite walkways.

Beau Finnegan loves his front garden 

The front yard's half-moon pathway separates beds of echium (Pride of Madeira), society garlic, various sages, butterfly bush, night-blooming iris, milkweed, and Eastern redbud, olive and Jacaranda trees. My sustainable garden dream came true with lots of help...I wish the same for you.

Before shot of front

Backyard "secret garden" 

12537 Barbara Avenue

What does a gardener do when there is a dominating existing element at a property?  Case in point is this homeowner's twin palm trees in her front garden, visible for many miles around.  She planted around the trees, inserting aloe, firestick and agave into the overall plant selection.  A perimeter of westringia in front and artfully arranged paths of pea gravel complete the look.  

The back yard is a zen oasis, with succulents, pea gravel paths, private spaces for reflection and plenty of seating to enjoy the splendor.  The entire space is hand watered when needed but plant selection was guided by low (or practically no) water requirements.

12531 Caswell Avenue

When a visitor from the East Coast first saw the giant cactus in our front yard, she burst out laughing. It’s not something you see everyday, or maybe ever, if you’re not from around here. It’s one of the things we really enjoy about our garden — that the plants that grow well here are so
varied and interesting.

A friend told us that this plant is technically not a cactus. We still don’t know its actual name, or the names of many of the plants in our garden. When we moved to this house, we found some beautiful, but neglected, plants tucked around the perimeter of the big lawn in the backyard. We decided to move them into the front yard, where they would have more room to thrive. We supplemented them with a small box of cuttings from a friend’s drought-tolerant garden and plants we bought from Theodore Payne and other nurseries. Just about everything was small when we started the garden in 2014, then we propagated plants as they grew. Later, we added a California pepper tree and a pink trumpet tree, which was free, courtesy of the City Plants Parkway Tree Program. They even came out and planted it!

We also took advantage of a turf removal rebate program, which helped us offset the cost of hiring a landscaping company to tear out the lawn and put in plants and drip irrigation. Our water bill was reduced dramatically after we ditched the lawn and sprinklers, yet our garden is more colorful than ever. It’s our little tribute to Joshua Tree, the Huntington Library Desert Garden, and all the great drought-tolerant gardens in LA!

3300 S. Centinela Ocean View Farms

Don’t miss this Mar Vista treasure! 

Come for the compost tips, stay to tour the gardens!  Visit Ocean View Farms between 10am and 1pm for a tutorial on composting from OVF’s resident compost guru Karl Lisovsky.  One of OVF’s most important long-term commitments is to continually increase its awareness of, and participation in, our neighboring community.  One example of this synergy is a cooperative effort with the City of Los Angeles to reclaim and reuse city-collected stable waste in conjunction with a vigorous internal composting program. Today, OVF's composting program entails mixing reclaimed stable waste with the green organic waste produced in the garden. Last year, over 200 tons of shredded soft green waste, 900 cubic yards of woody material and 80 tons of stable waste were combined to produce a virtually unlimited supply of compost for plots.  Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase visitors are invited to bring home some compost from OVF’s supply.

500+ garden plots overflow with organic veggies, flowers and fruit, all organically grown. From artichokes to agave, OVF has it all. This season gardeners are planting tomatoes, corn, beans, squash, potatoes, chard, lettuces, and onions. Several gardeners have cactus and native plants, and the perimeter of the garden is filled with fig, avocado and citrus trees, as well as pine, eucalyptus, black walnut and palm trees.  Organic Gardening Magazine donated a 1,100 gallon cistern to OVF and it sits at the top of the hill (at the far end of the parking lot) and is connected to one of the dugouts near the Little League baseball field. Just one rainy day collects over 600 gallons of water! The water is piped down to the composting area to be used on the pile. Ocean View Farms is on six acres of land owned by the DWP and under the jurisdiction of the Department of Recreation and Parks and is the largest of more than 60 community gardens in Los Angeles County.

12300 Dewey

This garden has been a 10-year labor of love. Design launched by replacing the ugly, skinny concrete path to the front porch with beautiful red-hued pavers interlaced with dymondia and some red brick to tie into the home exterior. 

This garden stop is a must for those with corner properties, as the evolving work added wrap around stairs to the entrance and multiple paths throughout the large space creating a thoroughly "walkable" space where you can appreciate all angles of the design.

Some brick was added to the limestone paver design to tie in with the home exterior.  But for some time, that was it...the law was still there.  Then the drought hit so it was time to make the front yard drought tolerant. Little by little, the lawn was replaced with dry stream beds and low water plantings.  In the backyard, the lawn was removed and replaced with drought-tolerant plantings, and a mini bike path was installed for the grandkids. There is also a pondless waterfall built into an existing planter.

12833 Rose Avenue

Special Guest:  Cindy Hardin of the Los Angeles Audubon Society

Friends and neighbors have told me while visiting my garden that it's a slice of heaven in the neighborhood.  On days when the sunlight hits the garden just right—I definitely agree with everyone, the garden is breathtaking.

The majority of the plants in the garden are succulents, South African and Australian plants. Almost every plant is from a cutting, a seed or a volunteer. At one point I had a strict color palette, but I let that go when I found beautiful volunteer flowering plants brought courtesy of seed deposits from the birds. Happy accidents happen in the garden all the time. Once in a while I'll reward herself with a plant purchase when an amazing plant is too hard to resist.

I don't use any fertilizers or pesticides—which is greatly appreciated by all kinds of butterflies, insects and birds. My only watering method is hand watering and rain from Mother Nature. I do all the maintenance, which is great exercise, rewarding and therapeutic. Another added plus is that since I'm outside all the time, I get to meet all my neighbors and make new friends. I love to give away plants and offer gardening tips and information—after all isn’t that what a garden is for? Great help from XYZ Designers and Best Solar.

11969 Woodbine Street

Inspired by prior Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase events, we resolved that 2015 was the year in which we would remove the old lawn and transform the outdoor living space into a drought-tolerant oasis. The result has cut water usage by more than 50%, and provides interesting colors and textures throughout the year.  Maintenance time in the garden is about the same as before, but gone is the noise of the lawnmower, replaced by the appreciative humming of bees.

Master Gardener Sara Saxonberg will be with us at our garden...so be sure to stop by. And Landscape Designer Linda Levine will be visiting as well.

Resources: 

Rose in Bloom Gardens

David Kent, deck contractor

Go Pavers hardscape

Volt Lighting LED landscape lighting 

13014 Morningside Way

Come sit on one of these bonafide Dodger Stadium seats.

There's a lot to see and learn in this garden!  

On an average residential lot, these garden owners have used every inch to incorporate chickens, bees, vegetable garden - especially heirloom tomatoes and herbs - succulents and mostly low water California native plants. It's their "urban farm."

About 15 years ago, one took a class at Theodore Payne to learn about California native plants and was hooked. They removed the backyard lawn and installed an all CA native landscape complete with a fountain for birds and other animals. Recently they replaced one section with succulents.

Seven years ago, inspired by the tranquility of their new backyard, the homeowners decided to transform the front as well, incorporating a dry-rock river bed that serves as a swale into the design. They left several existing trees and a few camelia bushes, then filled in with drought-tolerant plants. Ceanothus, manzanitas, fairy duster monkey flower and blooming sages grow along the dry river bed.

The parkway has less dense plantings and decomposed granite to ensure easy access from a car parked on the street. A six-inch wide rock drainage around the parking strip to control water run-off from the sidewalk solved an erosion problem and also adds a design element. 

The areas that were once thirsty lawn now use almost no water except in severe drought. Irrigation is almost completely by underground drippers and individual bubblers.  

The owners keep two compost bins going, utilizing the chicken manure. They have several bird feeders and big pots with milkweed for the Monarch butterflies. The house has solar panels installed by Sungevity.

The garden owners will have information about free mulch locations and can help with questions about chickens and beekeeping. They'll also have forms for certifying your habitat with the National Wildlife Foundation.  There will be a beekeeping demonstration, as the homeowner is part of HoneyLove, and strained and comb honey for sampling.