a neighborhood native garden

Sat­ur­day I had the oppor­tu­nity to take a short hike with some of the local native plant soci­ety folks through Man­zanita Canyon, one of the small neigh­bor­hood canyons in San Diego that break up the urban devel­op­ment on the mesa tops. One of the com­mu­ni­ties that sur­rounds it, Aza­lea Park, has been clean­ing up the canyon and the neigh­bor­hood. One of their projects is been to trans­form a vacant canyon lot into a pocket park devoted to native plants.

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The sign announc­ing Par­que Linda is almost as big as the lit­tle park itself, and is flanked by a sturdy plant of blad­der­pod (Iso­meris arborea, aka Cleome arborea) a plant that’s float­ing to the top of my list of favorite natives.Visually, it’s a pleas­ant, low shrub, with yel­low flow­ers sev­eral months of the year. The growth habit is open enough that you can see some of the inter­est­ing branch struc­ture, so the plant isn’t just a yel­low gum­drop.

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Judg­ing from the num­ber of insects vis­it­ing it, the plant also appears to be a big favorite of the local ani­mal community.

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The gar­den was orga­nized by adults, but many of the local chil­dren par­tic­i­pated in its cre­ation. I was par­tic­u­larly struck by the lit­tle clay signs that were used to iden­tify many of the plants. The adults iden­ti­fied the plants they wanted to label, but the kids made the signs.

The park gath­ers together a num­ber of plants that can sur­vive on what­ever rain­fall comes their way. But being a gar­den and not a reveg­e­ta­tion project, Par­que Linda will require the ongo­ing sup­port of the com­mu­nity to main­tain it. The fact that the lit­tle gar­den exists at all–not to men­tion that peo­ple will be com­mit­ting its upkeep–speaks to the fact that this is a neigh­bor­hood that cares about its well being, a place where people’s inter­ests don’t stop at their prop­erty lines.

We need more places like it.

March 16 2009 05:57 am | Categories: gardening • places | Tags: • • •

4 Responses to “a neighborhood native garden”

  1. tina on 17 Mar 2009 at 5:49 am #

    I sure hope it con­tin­ues to exist and that folks care for it.

  2. Town Mouse on 17 Mar 2009 at 8:20 am #

    What a great thing to do! Sure wish more neigh­bor­hoods would con­sider this.

  3. out of doors on 19 Mar 2009 at 6:49 am #

    so true! I’ve been work­ing on some projects with vol­un­teers lately and the pub­lic response has been fan­tas­tic. I’ve also been think­ing a lot about how we inter­act with the land­scape and where per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity and sense of com­mu­nity fit in…thanks for a great example.

  4. lostlandscape on 19 Mar 2009 at 8:42 am #

    The community-building poten­tial of a project like this is ter­rific. On my lit­tle walk, a cou­ple of the folks thought that the gar­den had more weeds than it should have. On the spot they began to orga­nize a cleanup detail. Com­mu­nity action in real life.

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