13004 Venice Boulevard: The Learning Garden at Venice High School is Showcase Central

SHOWCASE CENTRAL:  The Learning Garden at Venice High School

We'll kick off the 2018 Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase at 10am with 11th district Councilmember Mike Bonin welcoming visitors at The Learning Garden at Venice High School.  The Learning Garden was the first school garden started by community activists, setting the model for many of the other school gardens in the Mar Vista area. Attaching their endeavors to the existing gardening classes at Venice High School, The Learning Garden has been a beacon for the community since 2002. Great place to start your tour.  Tour this enormous peaceful and sustainable garden and learn about what David King does for the community.  Then pick up a map and figure out your route for the day, apply your sunscreen, talk to experts and meet lots of garden lovers. 

The entirety of The Learning Garden is grown without any pesticides, herbicides or fertilizer and depends on the soil food web to provide the plants with the appropriate nutrients. 

The garden is watered by hand; as a teaching institution, part of learning how to care for plants is watering them. Some passive water saving is employed, capturing runoff and sequestering it back into the aquifer. The gardens are well mulched. There are three or four (depending on the week) different ways of composting in the garden.

Inca berries

You'll also be able to dig deep into the expertise from the Seed Library of LA (SLOLA), the local organization protecting the diversity of our food supply. SLOLA is a collection of seeds and a community of passionate gardeners and volunteers, which facilitates the growth of open-pollinated seeds among residents of the Los Angeles Basin. A hub and repository for seed collection, SLOLA's mission is to educate members about the practice of seed-saving through their free monthly workshop and outreach events, such as MVGGS.  





Please note that you enter through the gate on Walgrove just south of Venice Blvd.

12517 Mitchell

This is our drought-tolerant turf replacement project. We added a flagstone walkway to the front door, with an open area to enjoy our morning cup of coffee. We replaced the sprinkler system on the main part of the yard with drip irrigation, and plan to do the same to the parkway and driveway strip when time and budget allow.

We irrigate once a week, when necessary. We use wood chip mulch to retain moisture and provide nutrients, and we apply compost tea seasonally. Our garden is designed to attract monarch butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds and provides some of our favorite foods and herbs.

Colors are chosen to suggest the iconic California sunsets. Our 3-year old garden is a work-in-progress, as we discover which plants do well and which do not, and as we take inspiration from neighboring gardens during our morning and evening dog walks. We are delighted to share our gardening journey with our neighbors, many of whom have taken the time to stop and chat, appreciating our contribution to the neighborhood.

3379 Stewart

GET THE INSIDE SCOOP ON A BRAND NEW GARDEN.  See how the site plan was devised, what plants were selected and how the garden owners worked with experts on every choice to make their sustainable garden dream come true.  This is a not-to-be-missed opportunity to see sustainable garden design and execution.    

Hi MVGGS visitors, we're Julia and Zach and six-year-old Roman, all of whom love gardens.  We have lived in the Mar Vista neighborhood for 10 years and bought a home here six years ago. It had a sweet English garden look when we bought it with a big green lawn and a white picket fence. A few years ago we decided to let our lawn go and stopped watering it with dreams of transforming it into a water-wise garden. Our brown lawn was dreary and we knew that it was time to do something about it. Julia began a vision board of ocean-friendly landscapes and created a Pinterest garden board.   

Site Plan 

Recently, our front yard was selected as the home makeover for UCLA’s Extension Landscape Architecture course “Building a Garden Ecology with California Natives," taught by UCLA Ecology Professor Alison Lipman, director of environmental non-profit SELVA International, and Steve Williams of Surfrider Ocean Friendly Gardens and Selva EcoGardens. Steve also works as a conservation biologist at Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains. The challenge was to transform a relatively small front yard into an ocean-friendly CA native garden which also allows space for play and relaxation.  We chose a drought-tolerant so cal native zen playscape from the concepts submitted by 25 students. The team of students removed all grass and existing plants and replaced all that with a rain garden, pollinator garden, natural playscape and gorgeous all so cal native plants.

When we couldn't find the perfect water feature Zach designed a gorgeous fountain out of a perfect boulder and made a solar fountain in an afternoon. We also added big colorful boulders around the rain garden for our son to play on. We have plans to put in a zip line and nature-inspired climbing structure for our son's play corner. So far, the yard has been attracting all kinds of birds, bees, and butterflies!  

The garden was installed last December so is only four months old. The plants are still growing their roots now so are still small above ground, but we think it is important to highlight that establishment of a native garden requires a little patience. The plants establish best from 1-gallon containers.  A popular saying about native gardens is, "The first year they sleep, the second they creep, and the third they leap!" 

Steve Williams will be with us in the garden with info about Selva EcoGardens and Surfrider Ocean Friendly Gardens! We will have free low flow shower heads and sink aerators from LADWP for folks in their service area.  

Plan provided options for water and light features

Here are some of the CA native plants you will find in our garden:

• Purple sage
• Hummingbird Sage
• Woolly Bluecurls
• CA buckwheat
• CA fuchsia
• Carmel Sur manzanita
• Yankee Point ceanothus
• Creeping red fescue
• CA wild rose
• Narrow-leaved milkweed

Selva International

Surfrider Ocean Friendly Gardens

Selva EcoGardens 

3635 Grand View Blvd

One year ago most of this front yard was a concrete driveway (1400 sq.ft.) and now it's transformed into a two car garage surrounded by eclectic, self-seeding, drought tolerant and drought resistant gardens (1200 sq. ft.) utilizing lots of repurposed pots, bricks and broken cement materials throughout. Pinwheels and Nepalese flags add color and movement to the environment. 

I use a Do-It-Yourself approach and improve the yards as time, budget and energy permits. I built a small retaining wall in the front to address the slope of the yard and used broken concrete creates pathways throughout the property.

Many plants and flowers were started from free seed packets and seedlings from the Master Gardeners at the Mar Vista Farmers Market or from 99 cent store plants.  Neighbors contributed mulberry saplings to my endeavors. Large agave, some fruit trees, grape vines, and artichokes were transplanted from other parts of the property. 

Shade trees (some from City Trees), flowers, fruit trees, herbs, vegetables and vining plants invite lots of bees, birds and butterflies. Monarch butterflies frequent my milkweed plants. A layer of mulch (supplied by the City) keeps the soil moist. Water efficient drip irrigation is monitored by a Rachio Irrigation controller, accessible by my smartphone. 

There's also a beautiful mural on the side of the garage by local artist, Gus Harper.

3610 Ocean View Avenue

This fantastic 120-foot deep front yard was an uninspiring swath of half-dead lawn. The homeowners asked Kevin Connelly of Park Connelly Landscape Design to make it into something welcoming. The aim was to make the long access to the house a pleasant stroll through a park-like setting, with various areas for lounging, entertaining, meditation and vegetable gardening. 

The design incorporates an existing Chinese Elm and a mature pine. A rectangular concrete patio which was cracked and displaced was recycled into a more gracious, wandering and “softer” walkway leading from the sidewalk to the front door. 

The homeowners' favorite feature is a yin-yang symbol constructed with white and black river stones as a 6ʼ diameter “junction” midway in the yard. A secondary gravel path leads from here to a quiet area bench and continues on to the raised vegetable planter box. It also helps to visually break up the distance to the house. A water feature near the deck entrance also reflects the welcoming aspects of a Feng Shui design. 

Landscape designer Kevin Connelly will be on site all day to answer your questions.

3590 Ocean View Avenue

This front yard garden was added eight years ago when the owners moved into the house. The previous yard was nothing more than weeds and the owners wanted to make it into a water-wise garden. With the help of a local landscaper, they designed the garden to feel like a wild field and to include specific plants such as the Foxtail Agave, Firesticks, Dodonea, Sage, Aloe and other drought-tolerant plants. The biggest addition was the California Live Oak Tree. While the main layout hasn't changed, some plants had to be changed or removed over time. The best part of the garden now is the maturing FireStick plants which tower over the front yard. The owners love to watch the ever-present hummingbirds zoom around the garden.

The garden has no irrigation so plants must really be able to survive dry conditions. During the summer months, the garden is watered by hand but mostly survives on its own during the winter.

3424 Keeshen Drvie

If you think ultra modern home design can't also feature drought-tolerant, well considered and beautiful, inviting gardens, then be sure to visit this home on Keeshen Drive. It's a stunner!

This garden was designed to enhance the bold aesthetic of the modern style of the house. Homeowners called upon landscape designer Linda Rose of Rose-in-Bloom to create a sustainable garden that would prevent the "sterile" look of many modern style homes.  Plants were chosen to soften the hard edges and make the entry warm and inviting (drought-tolerant all stars dymondia, kangaroo paw, and agave, among them).  

A weeping mulberry is a touch of whimsy and something special for the homeowners' two little girls.

The mulberry and the red bark Arbutus Marina tree ("strawberry") are the only plantings that need regular watering so bubblers were installed.  While taking care of the needs of these trees, this form of irrigation does not overwhelm the neighboring drought-tolerant plantings, which are watered much less frequently with drip irrigation sprayers.