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" 

3857 Coolidge Avenue

Come see what you can do with an old garden...and learn from a local naturalist!

Over the past three years, since the 2015 garden tour, this "California Garden" has been evolving.  Come see what’s changed and what’s stayed the same.  Gardens are dynamic, the challenge for owners is to be aware of what’s happening, and sometimes, just go with it.  This garden is a mix of new California natives and some non-native plants introduced years ago by the original owners.

One of the oldest California Avocado trees in the neighborhood is in their backyard. It has its own set of challenges and they've landscaped around it accordingly.   The garden is hand-watered and includes rain barrels and a rain garden.  It is a Certified Wildlife Habitat, Xerces Pollinator Habitat and Monarch Waystation.

Birds are an important part of the Coolidge

Garden. They are welcome!  This is the Year of the Bird, as designated by National Geographic Society and their partners the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, National Audubon Society, and BirdLife International. 

One of the garden owners is the former Executive Director of the Friends of Ballona Wetlands as well as a landscape designer (Giardino della Vita).  She is now the Dan and Susan Gottlieb Environmental Leadership Fellow in the Center for Urban Resilience (CURes) at Loyola Marymount University.

Organizations Lisa Fimiani is affiliated with or knows something about:

·         Center for Urban Resilience at Loyola Marymount University:  CURes works with faculty, staff, students and community members to develop research and other interventions that lead to more resilient and just communities.  The goal is to pair the study of urban ecology with local issues that can benefit from the talents and resources at LMU:  http://cures.lmu.edu/

·         Friends of Ballona Wetlands  – they not only do tours in the Wetlands, but also provide expertise on how to put in pollinator, rain, and edible gardens, as well as provide Summer Camp opportunities:   http://www.ballonafriends.org/

·         Los Angeles Audubon Society – their “Kill Your Lawn” cartoon book drawn by children will be available as handouts:  http://losangelesaudubon.org/photo-galleries-section/photo-galleries-category/kill-your-lawn-comic-book-gallery

·         Los Angeles Audubon Society –Tree Trimming Guidelines:  https://losangelesaudubon.org/tree-trimming-guidelines

·         Monarch Waystation Certification – through Monarch Watch

·         National Wildlife Federation – Certified Wildlife Habitat Program

·         SoCal Water $mart Residential Turf Removal Program –Bewaterwise.com

·         Xerces Society – Pollinator Habitat Certification

 How to register your garden as a Wildlife Habitat Yard

• Audubon At Home http://audubonathome.org/
• National Wildlife Federation http://www.nwf.org/gardenforwildlife/create.cfm?CFID=7177856&CFTOKEN=176461acda590e96-4839F373-5056-A868-A0F00601F3124B08
• Monarch Waystation Program http://www.monarchwatch.org/waystations/certify.html
• Xerces Society http://www.xerces.org/

Lisa Fimiani Contact Information:

Board Member, Friends of Ballona Wetlands  http://www.ballonafriends.org/

Treasurer, Ballona Discovery Park Partners  http://cures.lmu.edu/our-programs/education/ballona-discovery-park/

Gottlieb Fellow, Loyola Marymount University, Center for Urban Resilience  http://cures.lmu.edu/

Master Gardener and Restoration Specialist, Giardino della Vita  http://giardinodellavita.com/

Wetlands Restoration Principles Coalition Partner  http://wetlandsrestoration.org/

 Cell:  (310) 339-2737 lisa.fimiani@lmu.edu; lisafimiani@gmail.com

Visit my website: www.giardinodellavita.com “Garden of Life”

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.

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 

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.