Dream Garden Grows Up

I stopped by the Dream Center garden in downtown Los Angeles yesterday to see how things are growing in and I was delighted to see what has transpired since my last visit. It’s all grown up!

Not only did the flagstone and decomposed granite get installed in the pathway, but the mulch had arrived (free from the City) and it was all in place.

Pathway complete, plants growing in. Happiness is a thriving garden!

Some of the tomatoes even had fruit set already: …

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Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase 2011 Review

There’s nothing like a good garden tour to get your spring gardening juices flowing. Last Saturday, we set out on our bicycles to take in the third annual Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase in all its
glory. This free garden tour is put on by the hard-working volunteers of the Mar Vista Green Committee, and while our house has been on the tour during the first two years, we wanted to get some
inspiration and see what our neighbors were doing with their land.

With over 70 houses to see, we had …

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Dream Center Garden Progress

In September 2009, I started working on a project for the Dream Center in
downtown Los Angeles. It’s been a long road, gathering grant money and donated supplies, but the Dream Garden is shaping up to be a fine reality for the residents of the Dream Center.

Today a team of about 15 people planted the first batch of transplants into the garden. The excitement was palpable as we placed plants in each bed, according to a diagram I made …

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Do it While Dormant

January is a great time to spray your orchard fruit trees with a dormant oil that will help them fight off fungus, infestations and diseases that reduce fruit production in…

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A Gardenerd’s Wish List, 2010

Each year it is a family tradition to form a wish list in October for holiday gift-giving ease. Inevitably, my wish list gravitates toward garden gear. I’m sure my family is sick of it by now, but
when you’re a gardener, what else do you need?

It has become a Gardenerd tradition to share the wish list on the blog, not to solicit gifts, but to revert back to childhood and dream big together. Here’s what I hope Santa brings this year:

Patriot Electric …

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Back to the Ranch – Huntington Style

I’d been dying to see the secret Huntington Ranch  for over a year. Back then, I read an article in the Huntington Library and Garden’s monthly newsletter about the
development of a new vegetable garden on the property. I searched and searched each time I went to try and find its secret location to no avail.

Then an invitation to an all-day symposium for professional garden nerds hit my inbox, and when I saw that the events of the day …

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A Dream Garden for the Dream Center

“It all started with a butternut squash,” she said. About a year ago I got a call from Nina Girvetz asking for help on a garden project. She said that vacant
lot next door to her church was the perfect place for a garden, and when her friend Dru Hammer handed her a butternut squash, they knew it had to happen.

The residents of the Dream Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping inner cities, have taken refuge there …

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Front Yard Veggies in Manhattan Beach

We got one step closer to our goal of replacing all lawns in Los Angeles with useful growing spaces. The Winship family had a front lawn that
wasn’t serving them, and it was the only area of their property that had full sun for growing vegetables (as is the case with many homes).

I met with them to discuss what they wanted in a vegetable garden: raised beds, enough room to grow herbs, and something they could …

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