Garden in LA : Parkway before/after

A couple of photos featuring the transformation of the parkways...

Design's goals

The main goal of this transformation was to better use the water ressource which is a critical aspect in this mediteranian climate. Water was wasted firstly by watering the lawn, secondly by not properly infiltrating water runoff from the neighbor's irrigation and natural rainfall. We can collect a lot of both since the property being at a bottom of 2 hills is an actual mignature watershed.

The idea to remove the lawn which consumes a lot of water, has a very low diversity of plants and is of very limited use for insect habitat. I also wanted to plant some edibles and drought tolerant plants, on the one hand to participate in producing food in the neighborhood to plan for food security, and on the other hand to introduce the Incredible Edible movement to the people of this area.

South-east side

South-east side, lawn with sprinklers, november 2018

South-east side, planted in december 2018, photo may 2019

Plantings :
- 3 artichokes
- 1 rasberrey
- 1 pomegranite tree (still very small)
- native wild flowers were sown between the white rocks.

A swale is running trough the parkway harvesting rainwater and the neighbor's irrigation runoff on the sidewalk.

The wild crazy and colorful bug decoration is an initiative from my aunt who lives in the house. I must say I find them so hilariously great I cannot stop myself from laughing internally every time I look at them!

A lot of people walk down the street especally to walk their dogs. We've been having quite a few positive feedbacks from the neighbors and passerbys : they've never seen anything like it!