Ocean Friendly Garden Summer/Fall Series Available

The San Diego Chapter of Surfrider Foundation is stoked to announce we will be offering another OFG series in the San Diego area. . .this time in North County!


This three part series combines a unique classroom session and hands on courses that will show you how to improve or implement your very own Ocean Friendly Garden. With so many of our water quality and supply issues tied to our current landscaping practices, now is the time to step up and help protect our oceans, waves, and beaches.


Whether you are interested in completely redoing your landscape, or just want to install a few Ocean Friendly features, this is the program for you.


Three easy steps to get the most from the Ocean Friendly Gardens Program:

1) Attend the OFG Basics Course lead by OFG certified landscape professionals to learn the CPR’s of gardening (Conservation, Retention, and Permeability)

2) Attend the Hands On Workshop to apply what you have learned by planning an Ocean Friendly Garden at a local residence

3) Join in on a Garden Assistance Program workday and help your neighbor implement their Ocean Friendly Garden while learning how to implement features yourself


The entire program is only $40 (including all three events) and even includes the official Ocean Friendly Gardens textbook (a $20 value).

You can learn even more about the program and sign up at http://www.surfridersd.org/ofg.php.

Ready to sign up now? Simply click on the "Pay Now" icon to pay through Pay Pal.

Have you attended an OFG program in the past? Leave us a comment and let us know your thoughts.

Working With HOAs

Installing an Ocean Friendly Garden (OFG) can be enough of a challenge without having to face the roadblock of an HOA (Home Owner Association) board which will not approve your project. Making changes without informing your HOA and obtaining the proper approval can lead to hard feelings, fines, and other problems no matter how good the original intentions are. There are steps that every homeowner should take while working with their HOA that will make things much easier and generally lead to a fairly rapid approval of the project.

That being said, even though most HOAs are fairly amenable to low water designs, there are HOAs out there which will try to refuse any design that does not include lawn or lush tropical plantings and it is actually against the law for them to do so.

Our local Surfrider chapter is in the process of putting together some easy guidelines for working with your HOA which will be available next month.

In the meantime, have an HOA that's giving you some trouble about your low water plantings? Here's your backup:

Under the Davis-Sterling Act, Civil Code §1353.8. Low Water-Using Plants. specifically states:

"...a provision of any of the governing documents of a common interest development shall be void and unenforceable if it ... Prohibits, or includes conditions that have
the effect of prohibiting, the use of low water-using plants as a group..."

Have you had a bad or good experience with your HOA? Tell us about it in a comment!

Botanic Gardens

The GAP program was a wonderful success and we are so excited to see gardens all over San Diego become OFGs!!!

Our next OFG program starts in August and one great way to get a head start on designing your new garden is to visit one of our local botanic gardens!

San Diego Botanic Garden (also known to many of us as Quail Botanic Garden) in Encinitas is a beautiful labyrinth of gardens tucked away in the hills between the 5 and El Camino Real. They have a two gorgeous native gardens along with plants from around the world, but their most awesome feature is the new Hamilton Children's Garden which features gorgeous plants, fun artistic garden features and a little Quail habitat with a covey of our shy little state bird that is much harder to find in the wild these days. (They rely on native plants for food!)

For those of you further to the south, The Cuyamaca Water Conservation Garden, is another fantastic resource for learning about plants, irrigation, mulches, and other water conservation techniques.

Curious to learn more about native plants?

Check out some of Southern California's native plant nurseries!

Las Pilitas Nursery, Tree of Life Nursery, Recon Native Plants, and Moosa Creek Nursery are all great resources for buying and learning more about our native plants and wildlife!

Garden Assistance Program a Huge Success

On Sunday, June 6th, over 25 Surfrider volunteers helped implement San Diego's first Ocean Friendly Garden during our inaugural GAP (Garden Assistance Program).


The GAP is the final part of a three part series that helps educate our community members on what it means to have an Ocean Friendly Garden and how they can help reduce pollution that comes from our classic landscaping practices. The GAP followed a 3 hour Ocean Friendly Gardens Basic Class and a Hands on Workshop that highlighted how to incorporate CPR (conservation, permeability, and retention) in their own homes.

We are set to announce our schedule for the next OFG series in San Diego, so stay tuned to the blog for upcoming dates, times, and how to sign up.

Our homeowner, Steve Roeder, who was selected for the GAP from a pool of OFG class members, not only has a beautiful garden at his home, but will serve as a model for the community to check out when installing their own Ocean Friendly Garden. Steve's garden not only conserves water but also captures all the water coming from rainfall and irrigation. This means he will no longer have runoff that contributes/picks up pollutants and harms our oceans, waves, and beaches.



Check out the step by step installation process that happened on Sunday here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfridersandiego/sets/72157624255169186/

There a few last minute touches remaining, so check back for the final pictures of the garden.

We owe a huge thanks to all our volunteer's who spent their Sunday creating this masterpiece that will help grow our program!!!

Garden Assistance Workday-Volunteers Needed

This Sunday, June 6th, Surfrider SD will be hosting our first Garden Assitance Workday as part of the Ocean Friendly Gardens program. We will be working to install our very first official OFG in San Diego! This garden will serve as a model for other homeowners to use when converting thier own landscapes.

We currently need more volunteers to come help out. The event is from 10am-4pm, but even if you can't make the whole day, we are stoked for any help you can offer. We will have all the tools and supplies you need, and lunch is included.

The most exciting aspect of the day is that it will allow you to experience an entire conversion to an Ocean Friendly Garden in just one day. We will be covering everything from turf removal, composting, grading, installing dry creeks and retention basins, planting native plants, installing driveway cuts and rain barrels and so much more! Of course it will all be centered around our principals of CPR (conservation, retention, and permeability.

We are capping the number of volunteers due to the size of the yard so please RSVP to me (dylan@surfridersd.org) if you can make it. Bring closed toed shoes and a water bottle. The address is 5560 Chelsea Ave, La Jolla, 92037. Steve, the homeowner, has an amazing plan ready to go!

Hope to see you there.