About Us
Our mission is to promote sustainable beautification of the City of Solana Beach, in both public and private spaces. We sponsor hands-on gardening projects throughout our community.
Prefer to keep your hands clean? You can make a donation to support our projects.
In 2026, our regular meetings are at 10:30 a.m. on the second Tuesday of the month, except July and August, at the Center for a Healthy Lifestyle Cottage behind the Boys & Girls Club at 533 Lomas Sante Fe Dr., Solana Beach. All are invited!
Interested in joining us? Have a question about gardening in Solana Beach?
What We're Up To . . .
Ongoing Events
Fire Resilent Landscaping
Our April 16 meeting, 5 p.m. at Fletcher Cove Community Center, 133 Pacific Ave., will feature a special presentation by Greg Ruben, owner of California's Own Native Landscape Design.
Hans Schmidt, Interim Fire Marshall for Del Mar andSolana Beach, also be on hand to address questions you may have about the Department's recommendations for creating defensible space and "hardening" to protect your home from wildfires.
With more than 31 years of experience, Greg is a recognized leader in the field of native plant design and a sought-after expert speaker. "We've had 25 client homes that have experienced major fire events . . . and we have yet to lose a home," he says. Although there are
no guarantees, his approach to fire-resilient landscaping also was successfully tested in a four-year government research study.
Greg has been working with California native plants
since 1985. By 1993, he was able to transition out of his career as an aerospace engineer to devote all of his time to his landscaping business, which has designed more than 825 native landscapes in Southern California. Specialties include residential, commercial, and institutional gardens providing year-round appeal, low maintenance, water efficiency, rich pollinator and wildlife habitat, and fire-resistance.
Greg has been featured in a number of periodicals
including the Wall Street Journal, San Diego Union
Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Sunset and San Diego
Home and Garden magazines. In 2018 he was named San Diego Horticulturist of the Year.
He is co-author of two books with Lucy Warren:
"The California Native Landscape: the Homeowners’
Design Guide to Restoring its Beauty and Balance" and
"The Drought-Defying California Garden."
Greg has also served on the boards of the Agua Hedionda Lagoon Foundation, California Native Plant Society, the Lux Art Institute, and the Garden Native foundation.
Garden School
We learned a lot about the complexity of creating and sustaining garden education across seven elementary schools during our February meeting! Thanks to Sarah Raskin and Neva Magalnick of the Solana Beach School District's Environmental Stewardship Program for explaining how the instruction was created (painstakingly) and is breaking ground in its first year. The purpose is to give students active roles in hands-on gardening; each school now has raised bed gardens of varying sizes. But also to align instruction with science, nutrition and even art lessons, as well as state of California standards.
In Our Gardens
