When Landscape Architects take the lead!

Landscape architects are in a powerful position to influence the use of native plants in public and private places. One such design firm used their talents to inspire a community based collaborative project in San Francisco. That lights us up!

Thanks to Bonnie Morse of Bonnie Bee & Company/Marin County, CA, a one-woman connector to all things biodiversity, I met Patricia Algara. Patricia’s firm, Base Landscape Architecture (baselandscape.com), applies sustainable design to public and private properties

“The grassy islands that divide Dolores Street are one of the most visible casualties of San Francisco’s drought. …Withered brown patches have been spreading through the once lush medians since the city staunched their irrigation in an effort to conserve water.”

With Honey in the Heart is the non-profit “wing” of BASE. One of their projects the Dolores Street Pollinator Boulevard is an inspired collaborative solution to a San Francisco area hit hard by the drought. The Dolores Pollinator Boulevard runs along the first two medians of the Boulevard an area of 316 feet. To learn more about how BASE worked with the community, stakeholders and volunteers to create a beautiful, drought tolerant pollinator garden go to their site: https://www.baselandscape.com/work-pollinatorblvd. Updates on the project include monitoring how both medians are behaving after some years planting them, finishing the Second version of the Pollinator Garden Manual – taking a close look at the lessons learned in the structural resilience of the design, what plants have survived or taken more space.