Xeriscape Demonstration Garden
Passersby walk alongside the Xeriscape Demonstration Garden on display in front of the Glendale Main Library.
Xeriscape Demonstration Garden
Desert landscaping adorns the Xeriscape Demonstration Garden at the Glendale Main Library.
Posted: Friday, May 2, 2014 2:45 am
Your West Valley
The Xeriscape Demonstration Garden in front of the Glendale Main Library was fairly cutting edge when unveiled in 1992.
Over the years, though, city officials and those who maintained the garden realized rainwater headed down its slopes too easily, degrading the pavement instead of nourishing the plants.
Glendale partnered with the Watershed Management Group to revamp a portion of the garden to the west of the north entrance.
Watershed group leaders, master gardeners and more than 30 volunteer FedEx employees helped build a rainwater garden Saturday morning.
“The typical landscape thinking at that time was to mound a lot and create pristine landscapes from the mounding,” said Jo Miller, Glendale’s environmental program manager. “We’re kind of inverting that. We’re turning the mound around. We dug out basins to help water the plants and capture the rainwater.”
Glendale drafted the idea a few years ago, but money for the project didn’t become available until the watershed group obtained a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The funds were enough to provide for three pilot rainwater gardens — the others are in Phoenix and Mesa.
A watershed group led by program manager Ryan Wood came up with the garden’s technical design, and Wood was there to direct the setup of its channels and basins Saturday.
“For me, I saw the change (in thinking) about five years ago,” Wood said. “But looking at the landscaping throughout the Valley, I’m very impressed and seeing some changes. Even some commercial and residential landscaping we’re seeing a lot of depressions in the ground to capture that rainwater.”
Volunteers planted seven trees, 38 plants and helped to lay out 18 tons of rock to build the 3,500 square-foot rainwater garden.
Wood said in two years the trees planted Saturday will begin to get established, and the shrubs will grow larger. In five years, the hop seed bushes and chuparosas will provide noticeable greening.
Plants native to the Sonoran or Chihuahuan deserts were picked for the garden — such as chuparosas and fairy dusters.
“We’re having a lot of things that bloom red. It’s going to be a hummingbird oasis as well,” Miller said.
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Friday, May 2, 2014 2:45 am.
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