City Hall garden gets water-wise makeover

Humming birds. Bumble bees. Sparrows and bats.
If you build it — a California native, drought-tolerant garden, that is — they will come.
Like the one Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden board members Mike Garcia and Mimi Andersen installed last week in front of City Hall.
“Water issues are getting so bad, many people call and say, ‘I want to rip out my lawn and do some drought-tolerant plants,’” said Garcia, who also owns Redondo Beach-based Enviroscape. “Now I can tell them to go to City Hall and see the garden in front to get an idea of what they can do.”
Spotted with red Dwarf bottlebrushes, pink Euphorbias and Kangaroo Paws, the lush and colorful plant bed represents the first of what the pair hopes will be several satellite botanical gardens throughout the city.
Using a drip irrigation system, the garden needs watering six to 10 times a year, a fraction of what it needed before when it was filled with bird of paradise plants.
“It reflects a great diversity of colors, textures and options,” Councilmember Portia Cohen said. “You don’t have to sacrifice beautiful foliage for water conservation. At least we can use civic property to reflect that value and give people some ideas.”
The project was funded by a grant for which the city applied and was finished on Friday, in time for the city’s 10/10/10 Sustainability Summit last Sunday. The event, which included an Eco Fair, was part of a worldwide effort aimed at reducing behaviors that emit greenhouse gases.
On Sunday, Mira Costa High School Ecology Club students put the finishing touches on the garden by adding mulch to keep moisture in and weeds out.
The result is much more than the “gravel and two pieces of cactus” Garcia said most residents come to expect when they picture drought-tolerant landscaping.
“We want to get buy-in from people in the beach area,” Garcia said. “You could definitely see these plants in your front yard. Our job here is to show residents you can have your cake and eat it too.”
Andersen hopes that planting with natives — such as the Margarita BOP — will attract local birds and butterflies, creating a backyard wildlife habitat that residents will mimic in their own yards. The endangered, drought-tolerant Encephalatus plant from Africa offers the “desert’s answer to palms,” Garcia said.
The City Hall garden will also be used for ongoing classes already offered at the city’s botanical garden.
“On the face of it, it doesn’t seem like a huge issue,” Cohen said. “But it’s an example of how if a little step followed by many people can really help conserve water.”
A class called “Getting Started with Natives” will be offered at the Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden, located in Polliwog Park on Peck Avenue just north of Manhattan Beach Blvd., on Oct. 23 from 10 to 11 a.m. Beginners can learn which native plants will thrive in their yards. For more information, visit www.manhattanbeachbotanicalgarden.org. ER