Community Corner

Planting for the First Day of Spring at the Sepulveda Garden Center

The community garden provides valuable green space for local horticulturalists.

The community garden of is expansive, and takes up about 20 acres of land either side of Magnolia Avenue. Owned and operated by the Department of Parks and Recreation, it provides an opportunity for locals to grow and tend their own vegetable plots and flower beds.

On a recent warm, sunny day, Patch stopped by to smell the roses. No one could be seen tending their garden plots except for Susan O'Casey, who moved from England to the Valley, she said, many years ago.

O'Casey told Patch that she has tended her three adjoining plots at the Center for roughly two years. She described how she has recently constructed hedegrow walls to surround her plots, in order to create both a windshield and a protected "ecosystem" in which her plants would thrive.

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She created the "walls" by building up a hedgerow that consists of rosemary bushes and a flowering Black-Eyed Susan plant. The walls give the plot the appearance of a secret garden; unlike the other plots, what's inside is completely obscured from view until the door, covered with yellow flowers, is opened. Within the walls are a carefully tended collection of cacti, herbs, ivy, lillies and a strawberry plant.

Lynn Stone, who works at the Sepulveda Garden Center, told Patch that the wait list to rent one of the Center's highly sought-after plots is approximately one year. Some of the plots are currently being reassigned to new gardeners from the wait list. that Encino Patch reported on in 2011, the price of a plot is $120, up from just $25.

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To apply, simply call the Center during its operating hours and ask for your name to be put on the wait list.

Enthusiastic gardeners can also join one of the garden clubs that meet at the Center. Coming up on April 21 is the California Native Plant Society's symposium, wild flower show and plant sale. Check back with Encino Patch for the details, as they become available.


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