City Hall garden gets water-wise makeover

Humming birds. Bumble bees. Sparrows and bats. If you build it — a California native, drought-tolerant garden, that is — they will come. Like the one Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden board members Mike Garcia and Mimi Andersen installed last week in front of City Hall. “Water issues are getting so bad, many people call and say, ‘I want to rip out my lawn and do some drought-tolerant plants,’” said Garcia, who also owns Redondo Beach-based Enviroscape. “Now I can tell them to go to City Hall and see the garden in front to get an idea of what they can do.” Spotted with red Dwarf bottlebrushes, pink Euphorbias and Kangaroo Paws, the lush and colorful plant bed represents the first of what the pair hopes will be several satellite botanical gardens throughout the city. Using a drip irrigation system, the garden needs watering six to 10 times a year, a fraction of what it needed before when it was filled with bird of paradise plants. “It reflects a great diversity of colors, textures and options,” Councilmember Portia Cohen said. “You don’t have to sacrifice beautiful foliage for water conservation. At least we can use civic property to reflect that value and give people some ideas.”…

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