Ross Valley Fire Department is working along with volunteers from the Marin Master Gardeners to design, establish and maintain a community demonstration garden to replace the lawn at Fire Station 20, 150 Butterfield Road. You may have noticed that during the past few drought ridden summers the front lawn has died and turned into a large weed patch. Our new garden will consist of drought tolerant plants, showcasing both California natives and fire resistive plants - providing the community with ideas and the knowledge to transform their own home gardens into low water and/or fire resistive design. Not only will the lawn to garden conversion showcase our efforts to save water, it will promote the beauty and use of drought tolerant plants, and create a better habitat utilizing the surrounding oak tree, buckeye tree and creek setting for the birds and other animal life.
Currently, you are witnessing phase 1 of the project, which is the process of sheet mulching. By layering compost, recycled cardboard, and mulch over the lawn we will effectively remove our heavy water-consuming lawn, leaving behind a rich, fortified soil for our new community garden space. Why cardboard? The cardboard will act as a weed barrier by eliminating sunlight. It will also slowly decompose and eventually become part of the new fertile ground. Planting will take place in the spring when the ground both warms up and dries out a little.
This project is being funded by a generous donation of the Sleepy Hollow Fire Protection District. We appreciate their continued support of projects that enhance fire safety in our community.