Wild habitat loss leads to climate change and biodiversity loss. Gardeners, landowners, and volunteers have important opportunities to act as deterrents. This is the story of one such opportunity in a one bedroom community in San Diego.
First, a little background:
A relatively small mid-1960s landfill that is now part of Paradise Hills Community Park was the site of efforts to create a grassy recreation area in the early 1980s. Irrigation causes flooding problems.
The rise of consumerism and waste disposal is the legacy of the Second Industrial Revolution, the grandparents' world of baby boomers, and the Third Industrial Revolution, the world in which America's baby boomers grew up from childhood to middle age. Science-based legislation trumps our waste. The Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965 was mandatory and the new Waste Handling Act contained measures until October 1976. The US Congress encourages states to develop comprehensive waste management plans that are more substantive
In 1984, the US Environmental Protection Agency was mandated to establish regulatory guidelines and best practices for waste sites. Irrigation systems are no longer used as surface treatment components in closed landfills.
Today, the EPA primarily supports the replacement of landfills with vegetation native to the area, and thus the local climate. Native plant species adapted to our climate grow without additional irrigation. In addition, the native flora supports bees, butterflies, and native birds.
With this knowledge in mind, residents of the Paradise Hills community in 2017 proposed creating an experimental garden of native plants around the old Paradise landfill. The gardens will feature native plants that can grow quickly with hand water and thrive without expensive irrigation systems. The City of San Diego's Department of Parks and Recreation is afraid to express interest in the idea, but says the city does not have the budget resources to build and maintain the proposed park. Within the specified parameters, the city can "green-light" the project, but funding and labor must come from other sources. The site's topography and hydrology cannot be significantly altered and all excavations will be monitored for landfill gas (LFG). Fortunately, extensive monitoring has not found any LFG, nor has the Environmental Monitoring Service detected it in recent years. Setting standards, financing is still a challenge.
In 2019, those who submitted proposals to the city formed a nonprofit group called Paradise Gardeners, a member group of California Garden Clubs Inc. and began funding the Paradise Hills Native Garden project, primarily by soliciting donations. By then, some of those individuals had graduated from the University of California's Master's Program in Collaborative Innovation, and some of the funding came from the San Diego County Gardeners Association.
The park's initial "groundbreaking" occurred in September 2020 when Engelman oaks were planted in the site's parking lot. Today, Jerry Demonstration Park covers about 2 hectares, around an enclosed landfill. The garden features hundreds of native plants, as well as interpretive signs, additional walking or jogging paths, rocks, and benches. Climate-ready plants are chosen for their ability to thrive in monsoons, cool winters, and long, dry summers. To varying degrees, many of these native perennials go dormant during periods of drought; Others are always green.
The exhibition gardens include a garden area, a pollinator's garden, a western garden, which includes a pavilion of young live oak trees outside the bounds of the old landfill, and an ethnographic botanical garden that educates visitors about how the area's first Komiya community was. , using native plants for food, medicine, tools, fuel, materials, and cultural activities.
First-time visitors to the park should go through the entire park, as they have slightly different themes and may have varying degrees of seasonal energy. The walk through the entire park is a loop or a mile depending on which path you take.
A procession of atmospheric winter rivers drenched pollinators and butterfly gardens—about 5 inches of rain fell on the site in a 38-hour period—damaging paths and killing many locals who couldn't stand "wet feet." Mitigation includes improving surface drainage and planting strategies in affected areas. West Park and most human areas handled the flooding well, with little damage. These parts of the garden became a showcase for spring flowers: poppies, lupins, sagebrush, giant ficus, vanilla bush, ceanothus and opuntia.
The former landfill center is currently untreated, but there are ongoing discussions about potential uses other than irrigation. Also under discussion is the development of a loop trail of more than a mile in the preserved valley that borders the main park to the west.
Paradise Hills Native Garden is now the premier garden show garden, and Paradise Gardeners invite allied groups and interested community members to volunteer on scheduled work days, or take a walk in the garden and learn more about local water gardens. Near the South Fork of Paradise Creek, the park is a royal hotspot and stop. It is located at 6800 Potomac Street.
Jansen is a UCCE Master Gardener, and an advocate for the expansion of urban forests and the inclusion of native plants in home landscapes.
For questions about home gardening, contact the UCCE Master Gardeners of San Diego County at (858) 822-6910 or email help@mastergardenersd.org .
This story originally appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
