Cathie Goldberg and Larry Lubow have provided the finishing touch
Sometimes you see it, but you still don’t know it’s there. Sculptor Larry Lubow and garden designer Cathie Goldberg have beautified Riviera Village in Redondo Beach. What they’ve done is in plain sight, but chances are very few people have taken notice, and certainly not of the whole picture.
I’m referring to the 21 plant-filled hanging baskets, living spheres affixed just out of reach to streetlamps, and also to the like-number of planters – hefty, almost urn-shaped pots teeming with robust greenery. Once you’ve picked out two or three you realize how much vitality and grace their presence adds to this business and entertainment district.
Naturally, it wasn’t always this way.
Even plants need a drink
“The problem with most baskets,” Lubow says, is that “they put flowers in and no one takes care of them. So, most cities you walk around and you see a lot of dead baskets. When we came in we found empty baskets, baskets with beer cans in them, but really no plants.”
Goldberg and Lubow have been working together for about three years and their thumbs are green, but smartly so. They went before the business improvement board and convinced the city to give them a green (an appropriate color!) light.
“They had a hard time keeping the plants alive,” Goldberg says, “and it needed a lot of water and a lot of maintenance. We proposed this sphere of drought-resistant plants. We water them about once a week.”
Lately they’ve been doing the watering in the evening, after the day starts cooling down. Maybe that’s when the average passerby understands that behind each happy plant arrangement is an attentive pair or two pairs of hands. They’ll approach Lubow and Goldberg and ask all sorts of questions. After all, aren’t most of us gardeners at heart?
The project got off to its start last September and the plants and planters are scheduled to remain in place indefinitely. Lubow and Goldberg’s maintenance contract is for one year. Lubow remarks that initially the city was hesitant to grant them even that amount of time but seems to have come around, and Goldberg adds that they have received compliments from business owners.
Although the watering process is decidedly low tech – carrying a ladder and rolling around a garbage can filled with water – it allows Lubow and Goldberg to personally check in on the health of each little green colony. Even as the three of us circulate through the neighborhood they often stop to extract a weed or make some other minor adjustment.
“Any energy you give it, you can see it,” Lubow says. As the plants grow they drape over the sides of the hanging spheres and become eye-pleasing organic sculptures.
Secrets of the Trade
“We start with a stainless steel frame,” Goldberg says, which means it won’t rust and disintegrate, “and then we use grow material, like a big sponge, and we stuff the frame with the grow material. We cover it with [material similar to] plastic chicken wire, and we secure it to the shape.”
Lubow points out that there are different types of grow material, and that they experimented with several varieties. “The one we use,” he says, “is spun out of organic material, and it’s kind of like Fiberglas insulation.”
Goldberg says that they remove most of the soil from the plant and insert it into the grow material and that it takes root, seemingly without much hesitation. At the beginning they’ll water it twice a week, shortly thereafter weaned to just one.
“One thing we did,” Lubow says, “was we used clippings, and we learned that it’s better to put in as much of a plant as you can because it takes a while for a clipping to root. It’s a learning curve.”
As for cost management, Goldberg says that cuttings work just fine for them: They wanted to be in a position where they wouldn’t have to go out and purchase plants when replacements were necessary.
Grow material, in this case rockwool, comes in rolls, and Lubow and Goldberg have used it to create vertical gardens for clients who don’t have backyards. Like proud parents, they show pictures of a replica of a Matisse portrait that was transformed into a grow-material wall hanging, the visual distinctions clarified by the use of light- and dark-colored moss.
Many people are reluctant to have their vertical garden attached directly to the wall, Goldberg says, “so we build a frame onto the building and it’s irrigated separately. It gives you an opportunity to grow things anywhere, even on balconies.”
No need for flashy color
While this is Southern California, the plants won’t always be wearing the same visual expression.
“About four times a year we spruce them up according to the season,” Goldberg says. “For the holidays we put poinsettias in the planters.”
Lubow adds that just because they utilize drought-resistant plants doesn’t mean that they’ve sacrificed color.
The color palettes may not be as vivid as anything in Gauguin or van Gogh, but subdued is nice, and yet another nod to cost management.
“Flowers just require a lot of water,” Goldberg says, “and then they die and it’s a constant struggle to keep them looking great. But these do pretty well on their own. They like the beach air, I think; it gives them a little moisture.”
A little moisture; sometimes it’s all a garden needs.
“Live plants is low maintenance, not no maintenance,” Lubow says, by way of explaining how one project went awry.
“What happened with Wilderness Park was [that] we had this great garden, and we had all kinds of plants and colors. But then they came to redo the pond and they turned off the water, and they never turned the water back on.”
The problem, I think, has since been rectified.
Growing pains and gains
In Riviera Village, one will notice the metallic “R” that hangs opposite each plant basket. I’m not sure if the “R” is for Redondo or Riviera, but either way the originals were copper and had aluminum wind chimes. It turned out that these decorations were easily removed, and they all disappeared within a couple of weeks.
Lubow’s replacements are stainless steel. “I try to make them vandal-proof,” he says. “You gotta work to get it down. We haven’t had any problems with them yet.”
Goldberg and Lubow wouldn’t mind establishing similar arrangements with other cities to help enliven their downtown areas with potted plants.
Lubow mentions San Pedro (where he’s currently living; Goldberg is a Redondo resident), which has over 40 lampposts as possible contenders, but apparently the bureaucratic wheels are slow to turn.
“I thought it would be nice to venture out a little bit,” Goldberg says, “to do other towns not even in the beach area.”
Lubow says they could use (and emphasize) the plants in each particular environment. But as for right now? Lubow hopes that more local businesses respond favorably to what they’ve accomplished thus far.
“Our goal,” he says, “is to really green up Riviera Village, bring life to Riviera Village.”
Take a good look the next time you’re there, and you’ll see that this is exactly what they have done.
