Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase - Sat. Apr. 21st

Image from Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase.  All Rights Reserved.

As spring arrives and April gains its foothold on the year, events such as National Landscape Architecture Month and Earth Day prompt a bevy of great Los Angeles garden tours, ranging in scale from the regional down to the local.  Perhaps one of the most exuberant (and a personal favorite) has to be the one coming up tomorrow.  The Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase, running from 10am to 4pm on Saturday April 21st, is great because it is basically an open-source, neighborhood celebration of sustainability and garden-making in all of its forms.  While some signature designed gardens are always present, you also get the opportunity to see amateur enthusiasts proudly share their converted front and backyards with neighbors and strangers alike.  The result of the event is both grounding and inspiring because it reinforces just how accessible sustainability is becoming and how much the notion of sustainable landscapes continues to infiltrate the community outside the confines of professional dialogue. 

The tour is organized for ease into 6 districts across Mar Vista, and you can preview and filter different focus areas for the gardens on the Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase webpage to help craft what you want to see, including urban farms or habitat-focused gardens.  Below is more info from the event webpage - hope you can make it out!

The Mar Vista Community Council invites you to participate in the FREE fourth annual Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase - a citywide Earth Day celebration on Saturday, April 21st, 2012 from 10 am to 4pm. See the gardens on the tour here. We have 50 NEW gardens this year! Use the  labels on the side bar to preview the gardens by areas of special interest.

Use this MAP to plan your own personal tour. 

      Print out the map for each of the six tours - 

          Map 1, Map 2, Map 3, Map 4, Map 5, Map 6

Maps will be available at these 9 gardens the day of the tour. Here are some tips to use the bus and your bike to take the tour!

The tour showcases drought-resistant landscapes and edible gardens with sustainability features ranging from composting techniques to water capture practices. Urban farms range from aquaponic farming to 6 gardens with chicken coops. This year the tour places special emphasis on the critical need for ocean friendly gardens and California native gardens that support much needed pollinators such as honey bees and monarch butterflies. See how creating outdoor rooms provides much more useful livable space than a traditional lawn and creates a sense of community.

This giant eco-festival is comprised of 90 private resident gardens broken into 6 compact self-guided walking tours throughout Mar Vista. On the heels of three wildly successful prior tours that topped 2,000 attendees last year, the Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase will include special guest presenters at many gardens to enhance your knowledge of sustainability in daily living. Especially valuable is the chance for guests to meet do it yourself gardeners who share knowledge and experience. This is truly a giant block party throughout Mar Vista and you will have a blast meeting your neighbors as you visit their gardens.

The Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase seeks to empower Los Angelenos to adopt environmentally conscious living solutions. With most people walking or biking their tours, there is a tremendous sense of community as residents throughout Southern California come to Mar Vista to celebrate our shared vision for a greener life.

Guest presenters on the tour include HoneyLove.org, Los Angeles County Master Gardeners,The Seed Library of Los Angeles, Open Neighborhoods on solar and  Grow Native Nursery. 26 Landscape designers will be at gardens to answer questions and share information.

Mar Vista can make a difference!

For more information please email gardens@marvista.org

Media is welcome.

Scott Wilson: In Memoriam

Image from Los Angeles Times.  All Rights Reserved.

Sad news for the entire landscape of Los Angeles today as Scott Wilson, the founder of North East Trees died suddenly.  His impact was felt in his beloved neighborhood of Eagle Rock and throughout Los Angeles.  From the EagleRockPatch:

Scott Wilson, a longtime Eagle Rock resident, retired Eagle Rock High School teacher and landscape architect who was instrumental in the greening of large parts of the neighborhood, died Monday morning after a fatal fall sustained while cutting flowers from a tree in the garden of his Olson Street home. He was 89.

In 1989 Wilson founded North East Trees, a nonprofit environmental group devoted to planting at least five trees a day for the rest of his life—more than 50,000 so far—as well as ensuring jobs in the green industry for at-risk youth. He was trimming flowers on a tree in his Eagle Rock home for the altar of his Pasadena-based Unitarian church when he fell to the ground on Saturday, his daughter Catherine Richards said.

For more information about North East Trees, visit their website, and read a nice profile about their quiet, prolonged impact on Los Angeles from this past July by Emily Green at the Los Angeles Times:

Unless you are active in the field of urban greening, you probably haven’t heard of North East Trees. Unlike the better known TreePeople, North East Trees has not seen its founder land on "The Tonight Show."

Rather, the nonprofit that Scott Wilson started in 1989 by planting 700 oaks at Occidental College in Los Angeles' community of Eagle Rock has quietly been planting many more trees (50,000 at last count), working with low-income communities to create parks, and partnering with city and county agencies on water-harvesting projects. North East Trees has been at the cutting edge of L.A.’s ecological makeover.

As Wilson sees it, what sets North East Trees apart is that he was a landscape architect when the group started. He built a staff of foresters, designers and educators with the goal of strategic greening, going far beyond planting a tree streetside and hoping that it lived.

“It’s not about how many trees you plant,” said Wilson, right, during a brief meeting last week in the courtyard of the Department of Public Works in Alhambra (more on that later). “It’s about the right tree in the right place and about how many of those trees live.”

Bag Ban Takes Effect

It's official - the Plastic Bag Ban in unincorporated Los Angeles County took effect yesterday, Friday July 1st.  The ban initially impacts large retailers, preventing them from dispensing sold items in plastic bags and instead requiring them to use paper bags only.  Cost of the change will be passed along to consumers who will be charged 10 cents a bag, unless they bring their own reusable tote bags.  Eventually the ban will include smaller, independent stores.  An overview of the ban was detailed by the LA Times:

The bag ban was touted by county supervisors as an environmental measure to rid the county of "urban tumbleweed" that pollutes landfills and gets washed out to sea. Paper bags will still be available, but customers will be charged 10 cents per bag.

The effort is intended to encourage shoppers to bring reusable bags to the market for shopping.

The plastic bag ban will affect anyone who shops at stores outside the county's incorporated cities, such as the communities of Rowland Heights, Hacienda Heights, Altadena, La Crescenta, Topanga Canyon, Marina del Rey, Baldwin Hills, Athens, Willowbrook, Florence, Rancho Dominguez, Valencia, East Pasadena and East Los Angeles. About 1.1 million people in the county live in the unincorporated areas.

Although some remain critical of the ban, this is a big environmental victory that should have long-term benefits for waterways throughout Southern California and beyond (see the Los Angeles Times Pulitzer Prize winning series on the ocean - Part 4 for more information on plastic bags effects).  Although incorporated areas of Los Angeles remain unaffected, the ban still impacts 1.1 million people, a figure that only 8 US cities (not including Los Angeles) have populations larger than.  In other words, this limited action by the County of Los Angeles actually produces a massive civic-sponsored change in urban function, pointing out how the scale of  Los Angeles is not just a challenge, but also an immense opportunity to exploit.  While we tend to focus on ways in which mistakes are magnified by the sheer size of Los Angeles, this ban highlights how small positive changes can also become monumental shifts for the benefit of the environment.

More coverage of the ban is available at the LA Times and at Marina Del Rey Patch.

CicLAvia Interview

The Architect's Newspaper had a nice interview with Aaron Paley, the founder of CicLAvia, today.  It provides some interesting perspective on the challenges and opportunities for organizing CicLAvia, while getting the word out about the great event.  Below are some interesting excerpts:

We look at this as molding and shaping public space through this temporary intervention. We’re hoping this is the kind of thing that reshapes the way people perceive their city, which will change the way they use their city and change their expectations for the city. We think this can have as big an impact as building a park. We are adding this whole element of new public space, which can be done efficiently and sustainably and cheaply without actually building something.

. . . 

The thing that people said to us was: "Oh my God, I didn’t realize how small LA is. I didn’t realize I could get from here to Boyle Heights in ten minutes." The feeling was that LA is much more intimate, and who knew how beautiful it is? That is the right to be able to look at your city and own your city when people are not in their cars.

CicLAvia!

CicLAvia is back!  After a hugely successful debut last year, the second go-round (and the first of three scheduled events this year) is this Sunday, April 10th from 10am to 3pm.  The free, bike and pedestrian-oriented event should be even bigger and better and will be taking over even more real estate in neighborhoods ranging from Silverlake, Hollywood, and Koreatown down to Downtown. More info is below from CicLAvia's website:

Los Angeles’ second CicLAvia will be Sunday April 10th 2011 from 10am-3pm. It’s FREE, fun, family-friendly! Click for: route map, flier, or volunteering. RSVP/share on Facebook – or just show up! Check FAQ page for answers to CicLAvia questions. See the activtity map page for scheduled events or to add your own. (More 2011 events: July 10, October 9!)

SEEDBOMB!

It has been a while between posts, but what better way to start up again than with a SEEDBOMB?  Ran into a SEEDBOMB dispenser while out to dinner in the Miracle Mile area on Saturday night.  For only 50 cents, you can buy a SEEDBOMB, not for consumption but for an act of ecological insurrection.  Not sure how successful the dispenser has been in terms of sales, but I would imagine it has been highly effective at communicating a measure of ecological literacy and spreading the good word. 

National Tree Benefit Calculator

Speaking of the importance of well-planned and supported street trees, The National Tree Benefit Calculator is an excellent new website from Casey Trees and Davey Tree Expert Co. that allows you to calculate the benefits of a street tree in your neighborhood.  Just type in your zip code and select an extensive list of tree species, and you can determine how much the tree is, or could be, adding to your property value, air quality, stormwater management, and utility savings.  Even better, the result also points out how much more benefit the tree is if nurtured and allowed to grow to even larger diameter, and provides a conceptual summary of how a tree can impact site performance.  The website is only in BETA-testing right now, but this is going to be a great outreach tool for engaging the public,and potential clients, in the value of planting, and maintaining, trees.  Below is a bit more about the assessment tool:

The Tree Benefit Calculator allows anyone to calculate a first-order approximation of the benefits individual street-side trees provide. This tool is based on i-Tree’s street tree assessment tool called STRATUM. With minimal inputs of location, species and tree size, users will get an understanding of the environmental and economic value trees provide on an annual basis.

The Tree Benefit Calculator is intended to be simple and accessible. As such, this tool should be considered a starting point for understanding trees’ value in the community rather than a scientific accounting of precise values. For more detailed information on urban and community forest assessments, visit the i-Tree website.

Credits:
The National Tree Benefit Calculator was conceived and developed by Casey Trees and Davey Tree Expert Co.

This tool is powered by i-Tree; the data generating the results comes from the i-Tree Tools CD ROM: http://www.itreetools.org/

Significant text and graphical content was originally published by the USDA Forest Service’s Center for Urban Forest Research through their Tree Guide series of publications. Credit should be given to authors of these publications.

Facts about personal carbon production based on driving and flying courtesy of Conservation International

For questions about this tool, contact Mike Alonzo (Casey Trees) or Scott Maco (Davey Tree Expert Co.)

SoCal Moments: Views of Los Angeles

Image from LA Times. All Rights Reserved.

The LA Times debuted a great online feature for 2011 called SoCal Moments.  The daily photo feed features a selected photo taken by one of the LA Times's readers of the large socio-cultural and environmental entity known as Los Angeles.  So far, the citizen-photographs have provided an diverse, and interesting, look at LA's landscape from the people who experience it everyday.  Below is the project's description:

What have you seen in Southern California that was compelling enough to make you stop and take a photo? We'd like to feature these moments you captured.

Every day of 2011, we'll choose one photo to share with our readers. Photos will be posted each day on L.A. Now and on latimes.com/socalmoments. Highlights will appear on Framework. 

Image from LA Times. All Rights Reserved.

Image from LA Times.  All Rights Reserved.

Image from LA Times.  All Rights Reserved.

Image from LA Times.  All Rights Reserved.

Parking Day LA 2010

Image from BlogDowntown and Pamela Rouse.  All Rights Reserved.

Parking Day hit LA last week, and a number of interesting interventions took over the streets to celebrate.  Below are some links to coverage of the day, and pictures of some of the parking day projects.  

Parking Day LA

Downtown Blog - "Four Pop-Up Parks Contributed To Green Space For A Day"

LA Weekly - "Park[ing] Day LA Converts Parking Spaces Into Green Oases Throughout L.A."

LA Streetsblog - "Park(ing) Day Preview" 

LAist - "Park[ing] Day L.A. 2010: East Hollywood & Silver Lake"

Plants for Adoption.  Image from LA Weekly. All Rights Reserved.

Community Based Water-Harvesting Update

View of planter circa May 9th (top) and circa June 25th (below).

I posted about a small, raised planter / stormwater management cell a local group installed in a parkway last month, and here are some updated photos of it.  The vegetation continues to grow in, adding a spark of green to the street along with the promise of some vegetables (Tomatoes, Kale, and more) by the end of summer. 

 View of planter circa May 9th (left) and June 25th (right)

Community-based Water Harvesting

My neighborhood just got a welcome, new addition.  A local community group recently built a raised planter / stormwater management cell in a parkway to help control runoff from a nearby parking lot.  The cell incorporates broken concrete slabs to frame the planter and provides raised beds planted with vegetables and flowers.  While the cell is definitely a small, primitive intervention compared to many of the well-publicized, pilot projects we see in Portland and beyond, the project underscores for me the power of simple, community-based efforts for reworking our urban landscapes in a more sustainable fashion. Something as simple as some concrete, small grade changes and soil can help reduce runoff and increase planting area along a street.  Can't wait to see how well the cell works in a rain event, and the maturation of the plantings. 

Vote for Santa Monica Demonstration Gardens

(Project Site - from City of Santa Monica.  All Rights Reserved)

The City of Santa Monica is sponsoring a design competition for three demonstration sustainable gardens at 3200 Airport Ave, and wants your input.  Nine finalist designs have been selected from 27 entries, and now it is up to the public to vote for their favorite designs.  The gardens will be built side by side, and will provide examples of sustainable gardening along with design information, referrals and technical information to the public.  Voting closes on May 31st.  More information is available on the LA Times Home and Garden Blog and you can view the finalists, read more about the projects and vote here. 

cicLAvia

Interested in alternative transportation?  Big fan of bicycles, especially when they take over streets?  Then check out the great folks at cicLAvia.  Who are they and what is ciclovia?

Ciclovía started in Bogotá, Colombia over thirty years ago as a response to the congestion and pollution of city streets. Now it is happening all over Latin America and the United States, giving people a break from the stress of car traffic. The health benefits are immense, bringing families out to enjoy their streets in a new way, getting them to walk and bike together.

In Los Angeles we need this event more than ever, as anyone who tries to move through this city knows. Not only is it difficult to walk, bike, and drive here, but more and more children suffer from obesity and other health effects caused by growing up in a park poor city. CicLAvia creates a park by removing motorized traffic from city streets, and encourages people to come out and carve a new landscape for themselves.
. . .
CicLAvía will work to address five core pressing issues present throughout all of Los Angeles: Public Space, Public Health, Community and Economic Development, and Pedestrian and Bicycle Advocacy.  As a recurring free event, set for the same day/time every week or month, CicLAvía will allow for the temporary closure of interconnected routes throughout the region, creating a web of public space on which residents of Los Angeles will be able to walk, bike, socialize, celebrate, and learn about new cultures and neighborhoods.  Similar events have successfully occurred in other US cities, such as Portland, New York, and San Francisco. Bogotá’s Ciclovía has also inspired copycat programs in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Quito, Ecuador, and Melbourne.

So, it's sort of like parking day for roads, only on a massive scale.  In other words - awesome. And, as noted, extremely valuable in a city like LA without many parks or even substantial enough right-of-ways in most places to provide comfortable, safe sidewalks.  More info and coverage on cicLAvia can be found at the links below. 

LA Times - Brand X
LA Streetblog

Draft LID Ordinance Approved

Continuing the theme of stormwater management, I am happy to report that on Jan. 15th, the Los Angeles Board of Public Works unanimously approved a draft Low-Impact Development (LID) ordinance for LA.  The ordinance would require 100% of the runoff generated from a three-quarter-inch storm at newly constructed homes, larger developments and certain redevelopments to be captured and reused or infiltrated on site. If compliance is infeasible on site, developers could pay a stormwater pollution mitigation fee to help pay for off-site public LID projects like green streets and alleys.  Accordingly to Board of Public Works Commissioner Paula Daniels, "the new requirements would prevent 104 million gallons of polluted urban runoff from washing in to the ocean." (LA Times)  Supported design strategies in the ordinance include rainwater storage tanks, permeable pavement, infiltration swales or curb bumpouts to manage the water where it falls. A penalty of $13 per gallon of runoff that was not handled on site would be applied.

The ordinance will now move on to two more committees before facing a council vote and approval by the mayor.  Hopefully the ordinance will be approved in the next six months, and go in to effect by the end of 2010.  If so, next rainy season could be a whole lot greener.  For more information and coverage, check out Spouting Off - a blog by Mark Gold, President of Heal The Bay, for a great discussion on the significance of this ordinance, and LA Stormwater for a discussion of what LID is, including its benefits and examples of applications elsewhere.

Wednesday Jan. 20th - Public Workshop for 2010 Urban Water Management Plan

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is holding a public workshop tomorrow, Wednesday Jan. 20th, at 5:00pm to elicit views on the future of Los Angeles’s water supply.   

What:     LA DWP 2010 Urban Water Management Plan Public
              Workshop
When:    Wednesday, January 20, 5:00 P.M.
Where:  CYPRESS PARK
              Los Angeles River Center – Los Feliz Room
              570 West Avenue 26

Last updated in 2005, the City is now preparing its 2010 Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP).  The UWMP deals with the management and development of water resources, including efforts relating to the efficient use of water, existing and future water conservation measures, water recycling, and management of the City’s groundwater basins.   The workshop will feature a presentation followed by a group discussion.

More information on the workshop is available at LADWP's website or by contacting Simon Hsu at (213) 367-2970, or simon.hsu@ladwp.com.