New rain garden bed at Jardin del Rio in Elysian Valley

Last Saturday, February 18th 2012, KYCC completed our second recycled concrete rain garden. This one is at Jardin del Rio in Elysian Valley. I am getting more photos shortly and will post more about it. 

Above is a photo of the finished product – though it needs a little bit more soil to be added still. Below is my initial concept sketch for the site.

Initial concept sketch for garden beds at Jardin del Rio. In discussions with garden leaders, we decided to only do one raised terrace, and to not disturb the existing adjacent bed.

Sunday February 26th – Eagle Rockdale Community Garden

Terraced rain garden under construction in Long Beach

This is a work party: volunteers needed to help move earth, broken concrete. It’s not a spectator event – it’s work. Expect to work hard! The day will begin with a brief lesson on how passive rainwater harvesting terrace gardens function, but mostly it will be digging, lugging broken concrete, and creating terraced rain gardens! Lend a hand for as long or short as you’re up for.

Eagle Rockdale Community Garden 1103 Rockdale Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90041

The front gate to the Long Beach Community Peace Garden - KYCC's initial recycled concrete rain garden bed is on the left, second bed on the right.

Here are some photos taken this year of the Martin Luther King Park’s Long Beach Community Peace Garden rain garden beds (shown during their installation here and here.)

A closer look at the left bed, including thriving artichoke. Rainwater drains from the adjacent sidewalk onto this bed. The bed is shaped roughly like the letter "C" with the top layer level, and the opening in the C facing uphill (to the left in this image.) There's not a great deal of slope at the site, so the level raised bed is fairly low - only about a foot off the ground at its highest point on the right side of this photo.

Here’s what one of the garden leaders Stephen Duprey had to say about the project to KYCC’s Irma Garcia:

We have been enjoying the seating area as a informal meeting place at the garden and the raised beds provide better soil mix then native planting areas. The slight slope [of the top layer of concrete] helps water back into the beds and we see less plant loss from under watering. Also more people can pose for group photos in the park which is a nice touch.

I will ask around for more photos. Tell Joe “Thank You” for the beds and his artichoke and Yarrow are doing great!

Great to see how the project looks today and to hear that it’s well-received and adding to an already wonderful community garden!

A closer look at the right side raised bed. The front edge of the bed is curved to create a seating area where folks can face eachother. All photos by Stephen Duprey

The first bed is on the left side of the front gate; the second is on the right. Here are the beginnings of the project. The first concrete pieces go at the lowest point. From there the level layers are built up:

Long Beach Peace Garden bed No.2 first layers going down

Seen along the bottom of the above photo, we did a straight line leading to the garden entrance. These terraces tend toward more wavy curvy lines, but in some places it’s fun to something slightly formal (that still ends up looking fairly informal because it’s broken pieces.) When incorporating straight lines like this, it’s good to make sure sure the edge of each piece of broken concrete is is a straight line, so they all line up nicely. In the middle of garden we did a curve, which is a little more difficult because few pieces of concrete have concave edges, but it does create a good seating area where a people can face each other and have a conversation. 

The face of each piece is overall level, but they each tilt slightly inward, toward the garden bed (see a diagram here.) The level bed makes water slow, spread and infiltrate into the earthen bed.

Larger pieces go on the top level

On the top layer we used the largest pieces – mostly to create comfortable places to sit. The large pieces make the top level mostly vandal-proof; it’s difficult for one person to remove a piece, so they stay put. The large pieces are set to look visually level, but they’re also slightly tilted toward the garden, so rain  falling (or even hose watering) drains into the garden bed.

Front edge of bed pretty much complete

We planted some yarrow at points at a few points along the top layer. Yarrow is a drought-tolerant California native that’s a companion plant that helps other plants grow well. It’s a tough plant and it grows well in crowded spots up against pieces of broken concrete.

Now – the Before and After image comparison:

Here’s what the site looked like before we started:

and here’s what it looked like when we finished that day:

After

We planted a citrus tree, and covered the surface with mulch. We think it turned out pretty well, and will only get better over time with more planting.

A confession – this is more of a raised bed than a true rainwater harvesting terrace, which should have the upstream side open, so water can flow onto it. The left bed (shown here) is more U-shaped (or as we rainwater harvesters like to say: smile-shaped), so it does infiltrate water that flows onto it. There’s not a great deal of slope at the site, so the initial open-ended level bed here ended up being pretty low to the ground. The gardeners were interested in more of a raised bed on the right side (both because it makes for good gardening and a good place to sit), so we obliged. It still acts a sponge to soak in rainwater, even if water doesn’t run into it from an adjacent area.

We’ll go back soon and get some pictures of what it looks like a few months later.

Recycled concrete rain garden bed at the Long Beach Community Peace Garden

Last Saturday, August 13th 2011, KYCC crews worked with Long Beach volunteers to create a new recycled concrete rain garden at the Long Beach Community Peace Garden.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. statue watches over the park

The Long Beach Community Peace Garden is located inside Martin Luther King Park on Lemon Street in the middle of Long Beach, across Alamitos Avenue from Long Beach City College’s Pacific Coast Campus.

It’s a historically underserved Long Beach neighborhood with good sized African-American and Latino populations.

The Community Peace Garden is a community garden with a series of raised beds and a small outdoor classroom area, all surrounded by a fence. KYCC has been meeting with the garden leaders for a couple months, discussing designs and other concerns. Folks at the peace garden were interested in creating an additional garden bed, including some seating, in the area along the front of the site.

Last Saturday, KYCC gathered, with our crew, gardeners and other volunteers. 

The day began with a review of how rainwater harvesting can help solve environemntal problems, and how to build a sturdy level rain gardden bed. Some of that information is included in this booklet.

Here’s what the garden site looked like a few weeks ago:

Empty area in front of the Peace Garden

The area slopes to the right in the above photo. Peace Garden folks had mulched to the area to help contain weeds, but there was still some devil grass taking root in the area.

The first step was to clear the weeds at the site:

Next we marked off the area for the rain garden, and began to set the broken concrete:

Beginning to set the concrete for the garden bed

Note the use of the level. A water level was used to find the low point on the site, and to determine how much the differential was between it and the high point (the sidewalk.) As pieces are set, the level tool is used to ensure that the top of the bed wall remains level. Making sure that the bed is very level ensures that rainwater that falls on or runs onto the site will soak into the bed.

Given that the site doesn’t have a lot of slope, the level terrace bed is only two layers of concrete deep, at its deepest point.

Here’s the nearly-finished garden bed:

Garden nearly complete. The concrete sidewalk, mostly covered with dirt, is visible in the foreground.

The peace garden leaders are planning to do plantings there, including mostly drought-tolerant perennials, including some fruit trees.

For the initial work day at the site, KYCC only did the left side of the gate. Phase 2, hopefully in a couple weeks, will be on the right side of the gate, then the project will be complete.