“We want to live in a world where plants and fungi are understood, valued and conserved. Discover our science and visit our world-leading botanic gardens, Kew Gardens and Wakehurst.” – Kew Gardens’ website
“The olives, grapes, and oranges are reminders that Los Angeles is a garden community. The Rosary around the Seal represents the part played by the Mission Padres in the early years of Los Angeles.” – LA’s City Website on LA City Seal
“Part of Holland is transformed into a vast sea of flowers from mid March to mid May. It starts with crocus season in March, which is followed by daffodils and hyacinths. Finally the tulips show their gorgeous colors, this is from mid April through the first week of May.” – Tulip Season in Holland’s Website
Travel through Echo Park and you will see a much cleaner Echo Park Lake where lotus flowers are in bloom around July. Travel through Los Angeles and any day of the week, you will see farmers’ markets where displays of produce, fruits and vegetables are trucked in directly by the farmers from their farms into the cities to be sold.
But, consider for a moment that the LA City seal contains symbols of olives, grapes and oranges, and we are forever reminded that Los Angeles is a garden community. Yet, have we seen the City of Los Angeles as a garden community?
In the City of West Hollywood, their public sidewalks now have urban gardens. Drive down Beverly Blvd and Sta. Monica Blvd and notice plots of concrete have given way to cactuses, flowering aloes and climbing vines.
Drive down the City of Pasadena and a row of neatly trimmed palm trees greet you at the city entrance.
Beverly Hills takes it a bit further. By May, a row of trucks is busy trimming all their sidewalk trees. Why is that? They take their environmental responsibilities seriously. Since 1996, Beverly Hills has a strategic master plan of taking care of its trees, such that their decaying trees are replaced, debris from pruning are turned into mulch and trees are yearly-trimmed. “The City of Beverly Hills has been a Tree City USA award recipient each year for nearly three decades”, according to its website, with “an annual arbor day program, the Street Master Plan, a well-managed tree care program” are all key factors on why this city receives this prestigious award each year.
But what about LA City – is it a garden community?
LA seems to be a city of many initiatives. At one time, the past mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, wanted to plant a million trees in Los Angeles. I got solicited by my neighbor to pick up my share of trees to plant in my backyard. I was not as enthusiastic as my neighbor was. But, when he showed us in practice how rows of magnolia trees can improve our residential street, we paid more attention to improving our lawn.
Did that remake LA to become a garden community? Not really, as the residents were not informed of this initiative ahead of its roll-out nor was there a concerted campaign for successfully executing it.
In fact, a Los Angeles Times Editorial on April 23, 2013 wrote: “So is the program a success or a failure? As Villaraigosa prepares to leave office, should we be thrilled to have 400,000 trees we otherwise wouldn’t have had, or should we be disappointed that his campaign promise has gone less than half fulfilled? And here’s another question: Should we care? The tree-planting program has been derided as a goofball idea often enough that even on the city’s official Million Trees L.A. website, under “Frequently Asked Questions” is this one: “Why are you doing this when it seems there are more important things for the city to be doing?”
Take the current LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, whom we read about has been more involved in the national political scenes, including fundraising for Democrats for the midyear elections 2018. While this may be an important use of his time, particularly since we have a 45th president whose falsehoods have been legendary that Washington Post cataloged his lies at over 3,000 in his year in office, we are in dire need of truthful legislators who will genuinely serve their constituents.
While the mayor does his national alliance work to help elect Democrats, are his staffers and those who report to him up to the task of serving LA city residents? Are they even aware that our city is less than a garden community?
Do you see LA city with more gardens and trimmed trees much like West Hollywood and Pasadena? Let us take the examples of New Zealand where gardening has become a favorite past time of its residents. Or even Kew Gardens about half an hour from Central London where they have started a movement which includes anyone who eats. They have embraced everyone across ages, incomes and cultures and there is passion about planting what folks want to eat in their backyards.
It has led to what they claim as “vegetable tourism” gaining momentum, where plants and fungi are fully given spaces to thrive and provide for their nutrition. It has started many conversations amongst families and attracted many visitors to come to Kew Gardens but also replicated in other parts of the world, like New Zealand, Japan, Great Britain and parts of the U.S. It spontaneously gets neighbors to talk and resolve their gardening issues.
Any chance of vegetable tourism taking root here?
Recall the drought measures taken by LA city wherein the city provided city grants for residents to convert their lawns into less water-consuming gardens of cactus? Did you notice how urban lawns gave way to pebbles, rocks, gravel, aloe plants and cacti? Did it not improve the look the city to be vibrant and reduce the city’s water consumption? Was that initiative sustained?
That initiative was dashed once more, perhaps because funding has run out, while portions of the city’s sidewalks are now occupied by huge tents, as if LA city declared its sidewalks open for free camping.
But, these are not free public camping sites, but they became such, by default and inadequate leadership. LA City’s municipal leadership in approving housing projects has somehow ceded control of their urban planning to developers, creating a much bigger problem of homelessness, similar to the sidewalks around the San Francisco City Library, where one smells the urine discharged by the sidewalk campers.
So we ask, how do the City of Pasadena, City of Beverly Hills, City of West Hollywood manage to retain control of their public sidewalks as urban sites for gardens, without them occupied as homeless housing tents?
When Eric Garcetti was LA City’s councilmember, he had a vision of transforming Echo Park Lake, once a swamp of dying lotuses and a stench that was unbelievably offensive. Today, Echo Park Lake is thriving with fountains, with a walkable trail that wraps around the lake, healthy plants and lotuses about to bloom, and a family and tourists destination. It also boasts of recreational paddle boats and a healthy lunch place, named Beacon, where one can sit down and enjoy an avocado toast, while enjoying the view of a well-maintained lake.
I am hoping that current LA Mayor Eric Garcetti has more of these visions in him that could revitalize LA city to live up to its identity as a garden community, much like Kuekenhoff, Kew Gardens and even West Hollywood. Can we have more conversations for LA to live up to its city seal with symbols of olives, grapes and oranges and remind ourselves that our city’s identity is that of a garden community?
In Holland, from mid-March to end of May, there is an increase of tourists eager to see acres and acres of their land in Kuekenhoff planted to tulips, orchids, roses and flowering bulbs.
“On 22 March 2018, Keukenhof will be opening its gates for the 69th time. When it closes eight weeks later, some 1 million visitors from across the world will have visited the international flower exhibition. As such, Keukenhof makes a contribution to tourism in the Netherlands. One hundred bulb growers will supply bulbs to the park and 500 growers participate in the flower shows,” as their website informs us.
If only the LA mayor and its city council re-commit to a collective mission of delivering superior level of services to its city residents, more than its local mayor serving as surrogate for fundraising in the national elections (though we know is important), we may perhaps realize the potential of this city to be a destination city as a must-see destination for its botanical gardens and the urban gardens in many homes as much as its Hollywood attractions.
Instead of simply using their current posts as stepping stones for the next higher public office, how about if these city leaders sought ways for LA City’s potentials to be harnessed such that LA City is more than a drive-by city, more than a city of trash and litter on its public sidewalks, but a vibrant city of angels with a rational, low-cost and affordable housing strategy, and beyond throwing in public funds to subsidizing Section 8 housing for homeless folks at $1,300 per studio, how about applying their creative imagination of enlisting those in homeless tents to make this city livable as a garden community.
If smaller cities can have a makeover, bigger cities like LA can also do it and only if its political leaders, business leaders and community leaders and the residents all work together and committed to the renaissance of Los Angeles to become a garden community and a vegetable tourism destination.
Drive around the City of Pasadena and you feel renewed seeing all the green bushes and trimmed trees. We can replicate that same feeling of serenity in the City of Angels.
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Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D. writes a weekly column for Asian Journal, called “Rhizomes.” She has been writing for AJ Press for 10 years. She also contributes to Balikbayan Magazine. Her training and experiences are in science, food technology, law and community volunteerism for 4 decades. She holds a B.S. degree from the University of the Philippines, a law degree from Whittier College School of Law in California and a certificate on 21st Century Leadership from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She has been a participant in NVM Writing Workshops taught by Prof. Peter Bacho for 4 years and Prof. Russell Leong. She has travelled to France, Holland, Belgium, Japan, Costa Rica, Mexico and over 22 national parks in the US, in her pursuit of love for nature and the arts.
