We Won the CLCA 2023 Beautification Award for Small Design/Build Installation!

As the reality of climate change looms larger, the need for individual action becomes imperative. Our weather is growing hotter, rain patterns are erratic, and fires across the Western US are increasingly more destructive.

Gardening connects us to nature. It also invites us to think like scientists. The garden is our laboratory where experimentation, observation, and evaluation are a part of the process. ​

Is the drought over? Do we still need to conserve water in our homes? Can we go back to watering our gardens? Folks who live in Northern California, where we have been experiencing extreme drought conditions for the past several years, want to know.

LITHOHYDROLOGY Harvesting water through the use of dry laid stone work​ 

How we prep for planted areas at Mariposa

As the drought lingers in California, and concerns about how to save water are at the forefront of our minds, many of us are thinking about how we can best conserve water in the garden.

Kari and Allison have been working as co-leaders on The Garden Care Team since last fall. The team is committed to implementing Mariposa's philosophy of “Find your home in nature.” Meaning, they are working with nature, rather than against natural systems, to care for all of our gardens. ​When we asked Allison, who is an experienced gardener, how she thought we stand out from the rest, she said, “At Mariposa, we are much more concerned with the functionality of plants and role of plants. Not just what looks good but how they can provide habitat. How they provide year round nectar sources rather than just the aesthetics of year round color, yet we still accomplish the same level of beauty as any high end garden when we focus on pollinator and wildlife needs.” From left to right: Kari and Allison loving a Mariposa garden How we do it To make sure our client’s garden habitats stay in balance, we practice an ecologically based way of designing and caring for our gardens. This requires planting a diverse array of pollinator friendly plants and grasses, as well as providing water, food and shelter for any beneficial insects that may want to visit your garden. Some of the things we do during our garden care visits are:  * fertilizing with organic fertilizer, * checking and adjusting irrigation seasonally, * hand picking weeds, * employing non-toxic and organic methods of pest management, such as hand picking or spraying with water * planting cover crops in vegetable beds in the winter to boost the soil fertility and * annually apply compost and mulch to the entire garden for soil health. An assortment of native and pollinator friendly plants in all of our gardens promotes a medley of native bees, wasps and other pest predators that keep down pest pressure. The variance of plants and beneficial insects ensures that your garden stays in balance as an ecosystem, which makes it very low maintenance. When we install our gardens, we implement methods such as flame weeding and sheet mulching to control weed pressure. We work to build up the health and texture of your soil so that it will hold water longer, and make it available to your plants, even during a drought.

We are living through interesting times Covid-19, the coronavirus, has us all in a new situation, but we are living through it together. Sheltering in place means a large proportion of our communities are home a whole lot more than we used to be. Sheltering in place disrupts our normal schedules, distances us from our family, friends and co-workers. This isolation and finding new ways to adapt to it, forces us to refocus and realign our lives. Some of us are still working, albeit at home, which means we probably have jobs that require us to spend a lot of time in front of a screen. Some of us in service industries considered “non-essential,” such as landscaping, are sitting at home too - but with a bit of time on our hands. All of us have questions and anxieties. When will this end? How will I continue to pay bills and feed my family safely? What if the supply chain breaks and I can’t get things my family needs? All of us at Mariposa share in these feelings of uncertainty and insecurity. Particularly when it comes to food. That’s why we’ve chosen to use our collective skills to help our community grow food. As a cooperative, serving our community is one of our bedrock principles, and it’s at the heart of our decision to launch a new service. We’re expanding our business -- historically focused on creating garden sanctuaries for humans that support and regenerate the natural environment -- to now also provide more food security for our community.

This post was crafted by our South Bay Manager and Crew Leader Elizabeth Sarmiento. Her life has been an unbroken string of social justice and environmental activism. You can learn more about her work Here. World Water Day provides us with the opportunity to focus our attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. In 2010, the United Nations recognized “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights”. However, 2.1 billion of people today are still living without safe drinking water. This happens even in our own country - 70 million people in the USA may be affected by health-based contamination of water, including lead, copper, arsenic, and other contaminants.