Fremont gardeners showcasing water-saving plants

As area lawns brown and lush plantings wither, resourceful gardeners everywhere are beginning to embrace a new normal and looking for ideas to create the next generation of water-wise California gardens.

Coming to the rescue are a handful of community demonstration gardens staffed by master gardeners and dedicated to the proposition that a drought-tolerant landscape can be not only beautiful but cheaper to maintain and easier to manage.

In Contra Costa County, master gardener Monika Olsen of Concord heads up the Pleasant Hill Instructional Garden. A teacher with Mount Diablo Unified School District's Adult Education program, Olsen's students conceived the garden, which was then developed through a combined effort that included the city, school district, Pleasant Hill Garden Study Club, Master Gardeners and community members.

"Our goal is to connect the garden with nearby trails," Olsen said. "It's designed to be a living laboratory for students; they come out and learn about sustainability. . . the neighbors just walk daily through the garden; there's quite a bit of foot traffic.

"I understand we've been a model for a lot of other gardens in the community," she added.

Contra Costa County Master Gardeners also work in Walnut Creek's Our Garden, a demonstration garden that began as a joint project with the Contra Costa Times. The garden grows organic vegetables, 12,000 pounds of which were donated to Monument Crisis Center in Concord last year. Like the other gardens, water use is carefully monitored and minimized.

"Fortunately we put in a very low-water use system to begin with," said garden manager Janet Miller. "We water below the level of the foliage, but additionally have been able to cut back our watering time by about 20 percent. We use less water here than in a residential home with a family of four."

Carol Vander Meulen is an Alameda County Master Gardener, and one of the co-chairs of the Earth-Friendly Demonstration Garden in Livermore, a 7,000-square-foot project open to the public and designed to showcase drought-tolerant plants.

"The whole point is that earth-friendly requires minimal energy, effort and maintenance," she said. "All the plants have a low-to-moderate water rating, don't require constant pruning and require minimum maintenance. They also don't require a lot of special fertilizer, pruning or pesticides to keep managed."

Master gardeners like Vander Meulen work under the auspices of the University of California Cooperative Extension, which has master gardener programs in over 45 counties throughout the state.

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Fremont gardeners showcasing water-saving plants