Here is a little more information about these two delightful gardens.
The Century City garden, new to the tour, is designed to play. Its rough house ready IdealMow lawns of Carex pansa invite a tackle or two. If football on the lawn or basketball on the expansive patio aren’t of interest, maybe a game of hide-and-go-seek in the natives along the gravel footpath will do? For those exploring “outside in” landscape design and defensible space, this garden perfectly illustrates the strategies.
In Santa Monica, visit the petite paradise created for the Santa Monica Conservancy‘s Preservation Resource Center. The garden’s coastal plant palette, designed to absorb and clean rainfall and runoff in its last mile to the beach, cools the air and adds a vibrant pop of color surrounding the Center. If you are looking for foliage that thrives in sandy soils and salt air, this is a great stop.
See the Native Plant Garden Tour site for yet another day’s worth of beautiful gardens and tables of contents for videos.
The Native Plant Garden Tour funds Theodore Payne Foundation‘s native nursery and seed library, both key to LA’s long term resilience, as well as its education programs. While no tickets are needed to enjoy the tour this year, we are hopeful our community will choose to support this valuable community partner.
At their quarterly thought leadership events, USGBC-LA works to highlight a local sustainability issue, have an informed discussion amongst industry leaders on action-oriented solutions, and make collective commitments towards progress.
The first strategy session of 2020 will focus on our urban landscapes.Our urban landscape could be so much more than it is today. A true force for fighting climate change and restoring habitat as well as addressing issues around social equity, food access, health, and wellness.
The goal of the discussion for this event is to discuss why our urban landscape is what it is today and how we can work more collaboratively, more intelligently, and use the tools we already have to make our urban landscape in LA more than it’s ever been.
Agenda
5:30 Registration, Appetizers, & Check-In
6:00 Framing Presentation – What the issue is & why does it matter?
6:15 Roundtable Begins (Industry Experts with Moderator)
7:00 Audience Q&A
7:15 Layout of Next Steps & Commitments
7:30 Adjourn & Networking
Want Birdsong? Add These 5 Love Nests for Valentine’s Day
Updated: February 7, 2020. By Cassy Aoyagi: Would you like birds to suddenly appear every time you are near? Forget magic and make-up! Adding love nests will fill your life with birdsong and all the joys that come with it!
Here are five LA native trees guaranteed to keep your garden (and your heart) singing:
California Oaks
California-native oak species are the preferred or sole habitat for countless native birds and fauna – the original hostesses with the mostesses. Without native oaks, migratory songbirds like warblers, vireos, flycatchers, tanagers, and grosbeaks shorten their California vacations or simply disappear.
It’s up to each of us to replace oak trees lost to development, drought and disease. As we do so, the dense canopies of oak will help LA recover our distinctive, shady sort of cool and give the birds a reason to sing.
Manzanita, Arctostaphylos
Manzanita’s architectural branches make attractive, harmonious multi-family dwellings. It’s no wonder everyone from Western Scrub Jay, Black-headed Grosbeak, Mockingbird, and Fox Sparrow to Anna’s and Allen’s Hummingbirds want to live here. Each can harvest its preferred diet without even leaving the nest!
Nectar-lovers delight in chandeliers of bell-like blooms. Berry and seed lovers, including humans, also get their fill. Just in case award-winning Manzanita recipes entice you to compete with the Fox Sparrows, may remind you of the rewards of sharing?
Western Redbud, Cercis Occidentalis
Lovebirds are sweet on these sweetheart-pink blooms! Cercis loves them back so much her leaves are heart shaped! Western Redbud is heaven for hummingbirds and Lesser Goldfinch, who enjoy Cercis seeds. She is a great way to add seasonal color and birdsong to small spaces, and – get this – you too can eat the blooms – delicious!
Western Redbud will be dressed in bright pink blooms in winter – a needed snack for the birds.
Elderberry, Sambucus
There are so many reasons to plant Elderberry. They bring all the birds! If you have oaks or sycamore nearby, you may be familiar with this tune!
In addition to birdsong, Elderberry provides a beautiful, lacy privacy screen full of delicate, dancing blooms. It also poses some challenge – like discovering the perfect recipe for Elderberry wine.
Elderberry is a hard worker! It both blooms and berries while serving as a beautiful privacy screen.
Wouldn’t it be great if these bright red berries attracted love birds for Valentine’s Day? While Toyon is named Christmas Berry for a reason, we just may have bouquets of berries left for our sweethearts this year – isn’t that incredible!
Birds adore Toyon’s “Christmas” berries. They also make wonderful jams and jellies.
In any case, if you plant Toyon now you’ll be delighted to have him around at Thanksgiving. Cedar Waxwings will be tweeting their gratitude from the moment Toyon’s beautiful “Christmas” berries turn Valentine-red.
From Love Nest to Honeymoon Haven
Bringing birds and the healing effects of song to your garden is really as simple as 1, 2, 3. Planting native trees is the first step. Then, plant other natives. Finally, add a water feature. Actually, 3 is a bonus that turns your Love Nest into a high end resort!
Want more plant suggestions? See our Pinterest boards:
