700 North Alameda Street

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Metropolitan invites its 26 member agencies to attend a dry-run of the CFLT class, recently redesigned by G3. This 3 hour class begins at 9AM.  If you are a G3 Certified Professional or have taken the Communication Workshop, then sign up and join us!  Carpooling is encouraged, as parking in downtown LA is not readily available. 

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Pasadena Union Catalina Garden

It’s been a year since we led a one-day Sponge Garden building day in Pasadena at the pocket park at Union & Catalina Aves.  Kelley Hanna, G3 Certified Professional 2009 and The Plant Goddess of Pasadena joined Managing Member, Pamela Berstler, in a drive by of the garden to see which plants were happy, and which were not. We were pleasantly surprised to see people walking through the garden rather than along the sidewalk.  The decomposed granite pathway works!

At first glance, part of the garden seemed to be awash in Aristida purpurea, a native bunch grass that G3 recommends as a substitute for the invasive Stipa tenuissima.

Aristida (L) vs Stipa (R) In Pasadena

 But lo and behold, upon closer inspection, it appears that Stipa had been substituted for the Aristida!  The fiends! This is a most disconcerting development that we’ll take up with Pasadena Public Works and Water and Power, the partners that funded the design and construction of the garden in 2012.

Winners are: Arctostaphylos ‘Howard McMinn,’ Arctostaphylos uva-ursi ‘Point Reyes,’ Galvezia speciosa ‘Firecracker,’ Eriogonum glaucus ‘Bountiful,’ Heuchera ‘Wendy,’  Muhlenbergia capillaris ‘White Cloud,’ Eriogonum grande var rubescens, Salvia greggii and  Carex praegracilis.

1 Year Later – Melica and Aristida Didn’t Make It

Losers are: Aristida purpurea, Melica imperfecta, and, surprisingly, the Achillea millefolium ‘Island Pink,’ ‘King Range,’ and ‘Sonoma Coast.’ Monkeyflowers were no where to be seen.  Ribes, if ever planted, were gone. And, the Salvia spathacea looked about as poorly as it possibly could.

Pasadena Sponge Garden Looks Pretty Good

All that said, the garden itself is still a great public counterpoint to all of the turf in the neighborhood.  A little Tender Loving Care is all that is required (along with about 3″ of new mulch and an irrigation system check-up) to bring things into line.  A few 4″ – 1 gallon plant replacements, and the garden will look fantastic.  And, MAYBE we can influence Pasadena Water and Power to remove and replace the Stipa. 

Here in the Malibu Bluffs Park OFG, in order to demonstrate a lawn-like landscape alternative, we have included a meadow of Carex praegracilis (Dune sedge) and Vuplia microstachys (Small fescue), started from seed.  Trees include Quercus agrifolia (California Live Oak), Platanus racemosa (California Sycamore), and Cercis occidentalis (Western Redbud).  G3 WB OFG Malbu Plant List FINAL 031313

Compost Teana Spraying Malibu Bluffs Park OFG

G3 Certified Professional, Sheri Powell of Compost Teana was engaged to spray the entire garden with compost tea, and add it directly to the roots of the trees. She brought her giant brewer/sprayer, Bruce, and drenched the garden. 

Malibu Bluffs Park OFG

Malibu Bluffs Park Ocean Friendly Garden debuts with a blessing and the traditional ribbon cutting.  We couldn’t say it better than the Malibu Times:

“This garden is one of many ways the City of Malibu continues to deliver on its commitment to environmental stewardship, specifically our ongoing quest to protect ocean water quality,” Mayor Lou La Monte said. “This garden will allow the public to witness ocean-friendly garden principles in action and empower individuals to implement them in their own yards. We thank the West Basin Municipal Water District and the Surfrider Foundation for working with us to develop this educational community resource.”

A key benefit of an Ocean Friendly Garden is that it traps rainwater and uses water efficient irrigation systems to provide for plants, conserving water and reducing polluted runoff, said a city release. These gardens also lower pesticide use and make natural habitats for native wildlife such as birds and butterflies.

“West Basin is pleased to be working with the City of Malibu to install this ocean-friendly demonstration garden in one of the most outstanding local parks in the City,” said West Basin Director Edward C. Little. “This new garden will show residents that ocean-friendly gardens are nice-looking, water efficient and something they can incorporate in their own homes to reduce water use and costs.”

Completed Malibu Bluffs Park OFG

The goal of the demonstration garden at Bluffs Park is to display how a private yard can be a sustainable and beautiful ocean-friendly alternative to traditional turf and high-water-use landscaping. The City of Malibu, West Basin and Surfrider hope that this garden will inspire residents to do the same.

Water LA Curbing The Pollution

Panorama City stormwater becomes future drinking water through the curb cut made by participants in the Water LA Parkway Raingarden class, led by G3 Certified Professionals, Tom Rau and Marianne Simon in February 2013.  You know you’re dealing with proud homeowners when they rush outside during a rainstorm to capture photographs of the curb cut and parkway planting doing their thing to retain the rain. Now, let’s get the whole neighborhood to do the same thing and stop wasting this free resource from the sky!  Curb Your Pollution!

This beautiful TED Talk by Allan Savory, biologist and ecologist, highlights the importance of rebuilding native soil, particularly in areas where desertification already has begun. The irony of the story is that holistic land management and animal husbandry provide the strategic cornerstone to rejuvenating the grasslands of the world.

The lesson for those in G3 is: Protect and nurture your O.W.L. (Oxygen, Water, and Life), because Living Soil is the KEY FACTOR in environmental health in general and specifically for the health of your landscape and the health of your waterways.

Recently our Managing Member, Pamela Berstler, spoke in a meeting of Water Conservation Managers noting the paramount importance of educating about soil health in water conservation and pollution prevention.  Pamela argued that building a healthy, biologically active Soil Sponge was the MOST IMPORTANT ACTIVITY in healthy landscape building and that this truth applied to all manner of land use from agriculture to urban/suburban residential and commercial, parklands, and even “natural” watershed areas that we would consider wildlands. Pamela also reasoned that all soil is degraded (especially biologically speaking) and that intervention, remediation, and ACTION was required to rebuild our soils, particularly as it applies to garden-building, even when using plants that are considered native or have become perfectly adapted to the climate and place over thousands of years. 

Map of Global Soil Degradation

There was push-back from the audience.  One attendee proposed that plant selection and placement was the most important factor for education and that selecting and planting native plants in native soil was THE simple and compelling solution for restoring watersheds and producing healthy, low resource gardens (including water conserving, of course). The reasoning was that native plants don’t need soils with organic matter in them, and so long as the microclimate conditions supported the plant selection, no soil amendment was necessary.

On the surface it sounds right, especially when Southern California wildlands are observed — it doesn’t look like there is anything special going on.  SoCal soils appear to be lean. It is a semi-arid mediterranean climate.  The native soil appears to be devoid of both nutrient and organic matter. Certainly a chemical assay shows low N,P,K. And the native plant ecology appears to be loving the land just as it is — no inputs whatsoever of either organic matter or biological agents.

But look closer in nature and look at the supporting science.  This picture requires that you look not just with your eyes, but with your microscope too.  Look at the base of the manzanita or ceanothus in a wildland setting.  Look at the grasses and the buckwheat, and the sage.  Each plant has created its own soil remediation strategy right at its rootzone.  It’s last season’s leaves have been dropped at its feet, and its roots have exuded the exudates necessary to call the micro and macrobiology in the soil to come and decompose this organic feast. The recent rains filled tiny micropores between rootzones, and the sleepy microbes (bacteria, protozoa, nematodes, and fungi) have awakened, ready to eat.  It’s a good thing they are now awake, because this cooler, rainy season is when the plants, having adapted to the local climate, are ready to power up their life cycle to grow, flower and fruit. They are calling upon the microbes to attend to their needs.  They will need a soil party, and it had better be a big, diverse, rockin’ one!

The story of garden LIFE is an integrated story. Chemistry alone does not explain why plants live and die or why water fills the soil or runs off.  Physics alone does not explain these processes. Bio-chemical-physics is necessary for the full explanation. Biology is the required, central, predominant puzzle piece in the explanation of how the plant/soil/water relationship works.

As native soil and the ecology it supports are degraded through processes mostly human-influenced including (but not limited to) prolonged drought, air pollution, desertification, and disturbances like fire, or even hiking, the plant/soil/water relationship shifts. Grasslands become dominated by woody plants/trees. Trees collapse and grasslands or deserts develop.  Each particular ecological cycle is determined by the microbial population in the soil, which too has developed over millennia in perfect symbiosis with the parent rock, weather, plants and animals of the site.  The microbial population is healthy when there is Oxygen, Water, and Life-supporting food (organic matter).  Where there is Living Soil, there is plant life.  And so it is the Living Soil that determines the type of plant community as well as the hydrology of the site.

G3LA, LLC, 2013, All Rights Reserved.

Now apply this wonderously complex interrelationship to ALL SOIL, even garden soil.  When we are managing an urban/suburban or severely degraded setting such as a deforested and desertified grazing land, or eroded park, or turf-covered, over-irrigated lawn or compacted site on which a building or road has been made, what lessons should we learn from the native environment? The list of possible degenerative activities gets longer the closer you move toward human intervention. And so, the regenerative techniques required to preserve or build this singularly precious material, the Living Soil of the Earth, must become more diverse, more cunning and more universally applied.

The story of watershed regeneration and landscape health is not a story that is over in one short blog post, or even a lifetime of dialogue.  This is not a story that is told in bullet points or that doesn’t have twists, turns and dead ends.  It is a story of exploration, observation, and science. The story of watershed regeneration is a story of miraculous complexity starting with the tiniest creatures, only visible to the electron-scanning microscope-assisted eye, that, once invited into the rootzone of the plant by the plant itself, and provided with plentiful oxygen, water, and food, will sequester the carbon, store the water, decompose rock and organic matter, convert it to nutrient, and provide it to the plants in the ecosystem when (AND ONLY WHEN) the plant asks to be fed. Even describing the process in language as simple as possible creates a runon sentence.  

But it’s a place to start. 

Gardena Fire Station 158 Before OFG

The West Basin MWD has signed a contract with the Gardena Fire Station 158 to be the next demonstration project in the G3 design queue for an Ocean Friendly Garden. This project will be the fifth in the series of ten demonstration projects G3 is spearheading for the Ocean Friendly Landscape Program, a joint effort of West Basin MWD and Surfrider Foundation’s Ocean Friendly Gardens Program. The demonstration site will highlight opportunities for Conservation, Permeability and Retention, the three principles of OFG.

Alison Terry, Licensed Landscape Architect will be the G3 Lead Designer, and John Tikotsky, Licensed Landscape Architect, will design the irrigation system.

Las virgenes MWD Headquarters

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If you have completed the G3 Core Concepts Workshop and would like to become more confident in your ability to give presentations, explain Watershed Wise practices to your clients, or become a G3 Qualified Trainer and teach G3 Watershed Wise homeowner classes, then register to attend the two day  Communication Workshop in Los Angeles.  The fun begins with a FULL DAY TRAINING on Saturday, April 6th and continues on Sunday, April 7th.  

This workshop is led by Marianne Simon, G3 Associate 2009.  

Discount Codes Apply.  Please enter your appropriate discount code when registering for this seminar. ONLY ONE DISCOUNT CODE PER PERSON WILL BE ACCEPTED:

1. NON PROFIT (If you are a leader in a non-profit organization such as Surfrider, Coastkeeper, Heal The Bay, CNPS.)

VENUE: Las Virgenes MWD Headquarters @ 4232 Las Virgenes Road; Calabasas, CA 91302

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Las Virgenes MWD Headquarters

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After four years, G3 is finally conducting its professional training in Los Angeles. It’s your turn to participate in the super-charged Core Concepts Workshop. Learn how to calculate and communicate the fundamental aspects of Watershed Wise Landscaping. Or, maybe you want to brush up on your skills and only have time for one day of class.  This is it!  

Discount Codes Apply.  Please enter your appropriate discount code when registering for this workshop. ONLY ONE DISCOUNT CODE PER PERSON WILL BE ACCEPTED:

1. CCW GRADUATE (If you took have already taken the CCW = $200.00)
2. PROFESSIONAL (If you are a member of a professional industry organization: ARCSA, ASCE, ASLA, APLD, or CLCA)
3. NON PROFIT (If you are a leader in a non-profit organization such as Surfrider Foundation, CNPS, Coastkeeper, Heal The Bay)

VENUE: Las Virgenes MWD @ 4232 Las Virgenes Road; Calabasas, CA 91302

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Carson Community Center Before G3 Design

The fourth Ocean Friendly demonstration garden has been identified by West Basin MWD and Surfrider Foundation to be the Carson Community Center in Carson, CA.  This project will provide G3 with the opportunity to re-imagine the front entry of this highly trafficked site keeping in mind the principles of Conservation, Permeability and Retention. The Carson Community Center hosts events from small clubs and gatherings to large weddings and parties, and G3 is poised to influence this new audience with a colorful and functional, Watershed Wise landscape.

John Tikotsky, Licensed Landscape Architect, will lead the G3 Design Team on this project.