Saturday, July 18, 2009

Summertime in the Garden: Part One - July


Our volunteers aren't the least bit daunted by holidays or heat-waves. Much to the maintenance directors delight, they keep arriving; young and old, experienced and newbie. And we are glad for that.

On the Friday before the 4th of July, Gretchen and longtime member Jane along with Mira Costa student volunteer Selena, labeled and stuffed all the envelopes for the newsletter. Linda cleaned all the interpretive signs and helped Julie put in some new plant ids. Marilyn watered every new plant (a big job). Garen raked the paths.

The hot days bring out the fragrance of the native sages. A huge grasshopper the size of a hummingbird was the day's highlight along with the blooms of the Heartleaved Penstemon (Keckiella cordifolia) Photo by Julie Gonella.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Sunset Magazine: Lose the Lawn

Julie sent in a link to this great article in Sunset magazine about getting rid of your lawn. If that isn't enough to convince you read Tree of Life's Kill your Lawn webpage. We are planning our own Get Rid of the Lawn class for our Fall Series - so stay tuned!

MBBG is on the Map


Like Spring Hummingbirds on Red Gooseberry the garden attracts talent at the right time. We've been eyeing the property just South of the garden along the lower path that runs from the lower entrance through Polliwog Park out to Manhattan Beach Blvd. for an extension to the garden - but we really wanted a good aerial map to show the garden and the new area combined. Enter Chad Flynn, volunteer cartographer, map maker and spatial analysis guru. We are not sure exactly what he really does or what that means but we are so glad for his talent and our wonderful new map! Thanks Chad!