Spring has arrived a trifle early at the West Basin Ocean Friendly Demonstration Garden Project at Inglewood Fire Station 171. G3 Founding Member, Marilee Kuhlmann’s planting design is beginning to fill in and start its non-stop blooming, despite the slow start from an extremely dry winter.
This garden, populated entirely by all-native or close cultivars, was completed in November 2011 with the expectation that the rainy season would help the plants to become established. Thank goddess for that healthy, mycorrhizal fungi-filled soil G3 created on site through multiple applications of Aerobic Compost Tea from G3 Associate, Sherri Powell (a.k.a. Compost Teana) on relatively young compost produced by Las Virgenes MWD from biosolids derived from their water treatment facility.
Fungal Soil From Compost Tea
Alas, not much water has been able to gather in the rock-filled swales that capture storm water runoff from the adjacent hard surfaces like the decomposed granite pathway and existing sidewalks.
Groundcovers like pink yarrow (Achillea millefolium ‘Island Pink’) and coral bells (Heuchera maxima) already are filling in the gaps between California native oaks (Quercus agrifolia) and sycamores (Platanus racemosa), which are just beginning to bloom or show their leaves.
Salvia and Calylophus heat up garden
Red autumn sages (Salvia greggii) and yellow sundrops (Calylophus hartwegii) give that hot blast of color so appropriate for spring at a fire station. This Ocean Friendly Garden already is proving that Marilee’s painterly approach is a perennial crowd-pleaser. Once again, G3 demonstrates that an Ocean Friendly Garden is the right stuff for public and commercial properties and is just as appropriate in your own front yard.
