Have you wanted to find ways to avoid adding to our landfills? Want to turn your table scraps into garden gold? Has composting always been a mystery to you?

Join us and learn easy ways to compost using kitchen and table scraps, dry and moist plant material, and other waste to create nutrient-rich organic matter. Compost will improve your soil and plant growth, while at the same time reducing the waste in our landfills.

A Master Gardener since 2003, Joan Irwin has gardened and composted in the Bay Area for over forty years. A graduate of the University of Michigan and UC Berkeley, Joan speaks frequently on composting, organic gardening, and community gardens. Program co-sponsored by Sausalito Beautiful and the Sausalito Library.

Thurs, March 28 at 7:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers, Sausalito City Hall

February 17, 2019

At the corner of Napa Street and Bridgeway, you can see that Bolinar Plaza is back in bloom for the winter!  Just when many plants are taking a rest or going dormant, succulents such as the spider aloe above burst into bloom with spires of fiery color.

If you’d like to include water-wise succulents in your garden, Tom Wilhite (Bolinar Plaza’s garden designer) suggests these three from Bolinar Plaza:

• Spider Aloe (Aloe x spinosissima) is the red-blooming plant
• Blue Chalksticks (Senecio mandraliscae) is the lower-growing blue plant
• Foxtail Agave (Agave attenuata) is the large leafed plant

 

In 2015, Sausalito Beautiful partnered with the City of Sausalito to lead the renovation of the landscape surrounding the John Libberton sculpture called Bolinar, which means “close to the wind” in Portuguese. The sail-shaped sculpture commemorates Sausalito’s 1993 Centennial while celebrating our city’s Portuguese heritage.

Plants for the plaza’s original 1993 succulent garden were donated by the late Dr. Herman Schwartz, the famed plant collector and succulent specialist who made his home in Marin County. The plants from the 2015 renovation were started from cuttings Tom took from Dr. Schwartz’s original Bolinas garden.

Next time you drive along Bridgeway be on the look out for this the small, triangular garden—even better, take a stroll down Caledonia and make it your destination for a picnic lunch. On drier days you might even see bees harvesting the pollen from the winter-blooming aloes.

February 15, 2019

Which businesses have created fabulous green spaces around town? Let us know the ones you admire most by May 31st, so that we can consider them for one of Sausalito Beautiful’s coveted Beautification Awards! Simply email your nominations to awards@sausalitobeautiful.org.

The 2018 awards were extremely competitive, especially in the north end of town where I’ve noticed a significant improvement in the green spaces. Congratulations goes to the 2018 winners:

• Mollie Stone’s
• Waldo Point Harbor
• Bolinar Plaza
• Valhalla Signworks
• Golden Gate Sotheby’s

February 12, 2019

Marin Master Gardeners are a great resource for us Sausalitans.  They offer classes, consultations, and informative, research-based articles. You’ll find their articles every Saturday in the Marin Independent Journal but the same articles can also be found on-line at the Marin Master Gardener website.  Recent articles include edible container gardening, soil testing, first steps for summer veggies, and how to choose lavender.

If you are an avid gardener, you will want to subscribe to the Marin Master Gardener quarterly e-newsletter, the Leaflet, featuring expert tips and solutions specific to Marin County.

Sausalito Beautiful has been working with Marin Master Gardeners since our inception, co-sponsoring many talks at the Sausalito Public Library. Our next talk entitled Growing Roses will be on Thursday, February 28th at 7pm in Council Chambers.

Learn how to select, plant, and prune the roses in your garden! UC Marin Master Gardener Rod Kerr has grown and tended roses for 35 years. Program co-sponsored by Sausalito Beautiful and the Sausalito Library.

Thurs, February 28 at 7:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers, Sausalito City Hall

January 30, 2019

Congratulations to Rebecca Lanthorne and her neighbors for meeting their goal of raising $1400 to revitalize the garden surrounding the 2nd Street Steps! Sausalito Beautiful will be contributing $600 in matching funds, enabling the neighborhood to address long-deferred care and maintenance of this quaint public garden.

The neighborhood group already had their first neighborhood meetup on Sunday, 1/27 and had a great turnout (~11 people).  They are already planning their next meetup in the spring, but this time with a potluck.  If you are interested in joining the meetups, please email your name, phone number and address to 2ndstreetgarden@gmail.com.

Everyone at Sausalito Beautiful is very excited that Rebecca and her neighbors have adopted this garden!  We are handling the donations for the group, and even though they have met their initial goal, we encourage you to continue encouraging them through your donations.  Any additional donations will go to next year’s maintenance of this public green space.