Ocean Friendly Gardens in Los Angeles

Promoting and installingOcean Friendly Gardens in your community is a great way to make a positive impact on water quality in your watershed and at your beach. This program dove tails nicely with beach water testing programs. Check out the local media being generated by the West LA/Malibu Chapter'sOcean Friendly Gardens program or the new OFG Blog.

Surfrider workshop to show gardeners how to reduce pollution flowing to ocean

July 7, 2010 | 7:44 am

I stopped putting manure on my lawn after reading L.A. at Home columnist Emily Green's review of Douglas Kent's book "Ocean Friendly Gardens." Wrote Green: "This book strives to keep the things that we may apply to our yards where they belong and out of the ocean. Above all, it strives to protect the wild environment that drew so many of us to California in the first place."

You can learn more about preventing garden pollution from reaching the ocean at the Surfrider Foundation's hands-on workshop on Sunday. Presented as part of Surfrider's Ocean Friendly Gardens program, the class will cover site evaluation and the principles of CPR -- conservation, permeability and retention, all methods that will help prevent urban runoff.

The class also comes with a wonderful perk: Participants have the option of using the Surfrider Garden Assistance Program at a later date. This means that once you have developed a plan, Surfrider volunteers will help to tear out your yard and replant it in just one day. The catch? You have to be willing to help someone else with a garden face-lift in return.

"Attendees have to provide a plan, materials, plants and food, and we show up with volunteers," says Celeste Howe, chairwoman of the Surfrider Foundation West L.A./Malibu Chapter's Ocean Friendly Gardens program. Howe says that the sidewalk strip shown at right took about six hours to transform. They started around 9 or 10 a.m., and by 4 p.m. they had taken out turf, installed plants, added layers of compost and mulch, and applied compost tea.

The Green Gardens Group will lead the Sunday class, which will include a tour of a Westchester yard. The class runs from 9 a.m. to noon. Cost: $25. Registration:oceanfriendlygardens@surfriderwlam.org or (310) 694-8351.

-- Lisa Boone, Los Angeles Times

Photo credits, from top: Angie Johnson; Celeste Howe

Newport Aquarium Youth Volunteers: BWTF & Ocean Friendly Gardens

The water samples for the Newport Chapter’s BWTF program are analyzed at the Newport Aquarium by a group of Youth Volunteers. This is a symbiotic partnership that works well for both groups. In the past the youth volunteers have been pretty instrumental in getting the City of Newport to pay attention to the requests that the Chapter had been making, including tracking the source of pollution in the Nye Creek Watershed and recommendations for BMPs to address non-point sources.

This year the Youth Volunteers have continued to run the BWTF lab, and have also taken on a project to implement another Surfrider program, Ocean Friendly Gardens, at the Aquarium. It is great to see this group move beyond basic water testing and work on ways to improve water quality in their community.

With a little guidance from Oregon’s Field Coordinator, Charlie Plybon, the kids set out in October ‘08, met once a month, and produced the following goals:

1) Assess the Aquarium grounds for ocean friendly techniques
2) Educate the Aquarium visitors on ocean friendly garden and landscape techniques
3) Educate outside the Aquarium audience through online social networking
4) Maintain BWTF lab analysis

Here’s what they achieved during the seven-month project:

1) Worked with groundskeepers and landscape staff at the Aquarium to identify and improve upon ocean friendly techniques. Researched Surfrider Ocean Friendly Garden techniques and other LID approaches and best practices for water quality.
2) Created signage on the aquarium grounds to spotlight OFG techniques (see above). They put together 3 signs throughout the Aquarium grounds.
3) Developed an OFG poster and display with Surfrider OFG brochures.
4) Developed a powerpoint presentation to deliver to Aquarium visitors on their project and OFG techniques.
3) Developed a video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxCsEtcjGzY   
4) Continued water quality lab work throughout the winter for the local BWTF. Ran over 100 samples for local beaches and Nye watershed.
5) Gave a final public presentation.