Pachamama Inspired

Pachamama Test Garden recently got some upgrades and is looking extra pretty kissed with this late season LA rain. 🌿🦋🌸🐛🌧️🌈

Always a joy to find the perfect stone. These beautiful boulders are destined for a peaceful meditation garden.

Grateful for these gifts from Mother Earth 🌍

Garden gifts 🎁 🙏🌿

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This regenerative oasis is just one year old! 🍋🦋🦎🌿🍓

Swipe to see the incredible transformation from barren heat island to lush and brimming with life…

This edible oasis is just one year old! 🍑🍎🌸🦋🦎🌿🍓

Swipe to see the incredible transformation from a heat island to a lush retreat brimming with life… ✨✨✨

Grateful for a lovely end to another busy week. ✨🌿✨🌿

Happy Friday to all !

Sending a huge shoutout to my amazing clients for sharing the warm holiday vibes from their outdoor dining haven!

Absolutely enchanted by the magic you’ve crafted, and that table made with your dad? Simply breathtaking! 😍

Here’s to countless more good times for your family outdoors! Cheers! 🌟 ”🌟

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So many beautiful butterflies this time of year 🦋🦋🦋
These frequent visitors always make my day.

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It’s that time of year again. We are blessed with tomatoes for days!! (And for all of our family neighbors too 😉😉)

Who out there can share a unique recipe we could try out on this beautiful bounty?!
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What a difference a year can make 🌻🌿✨

Who can spot the visitor ??

Can anyone identify this little beauty??


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With all this heat consider showing your newer, more delicate plants a little extra love with some protection from the sun during the hottest part of the day.

Nothing beats the joy of experiencing a shared vision come to life! 👍🦋🌿

Imagine stepping into a scene from a fairy tale, where everything is harmonious, vibrant, and flourishing. 🦆🐣🐓🦅🐞🦋True magic happens when nature and creativity collide, crafting an enchanting transformation that's more than just a garden—it's a living, breathing masterpiece.

Take a moment to appreciate these transformation images; with a little coaching and support our dear client's garden has been metamorphosed into an edible paradise 🍓🍑🫐and children's haven to boot. The space is not only full of pollinator plants, fruit tree guilds, sprinklings of herbs and veggies, but also includes generous gathering and play areas throughout.

As if that were not enough, this incredible client not only designed and built the cutest duck/chicken coop, but managed to also create a functioning babbling creek and waterfall 💧💦that meanders through the length of the yard - a true haven for the kiddos, ducks and chickens to all enjoy!

There is so much I LOVE about this project and this amazing client. To watch this space evolve and to see our shared vision come to life better than we ever dreamed of, well, it's nothing short of inspiring!
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Witnessing clients grow alongside their gardens is always extraordinary and brings me immense joy. There is no greater gift than seeing a client's hard work and passion translate into such a beautiful and enlivening space.🌿💚

Thank you for sharing this incredible gardening journey! Can't wait to see what you do next over there :)
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Check out this beautiful bountiful harvest 🫐👩🏻‍🌾 - all of this came from just one tree and two bushes!

Amazingly we have been continuously harvesting similar hauls over the past couple of weeks!!

The blueberries are in a small raised bed on my front patio! Even if you only have a tiny bit of space, you can grow blueberries too!!💙🫐

The mulberry tree is another story… 😅

Want to learn more!! Head to our website and schedule a garden coaching consultation. We would love to help you grow your own abundance of food right at home 🏡
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Legumes are BURSTING out of several places in our garden these days. We make a point of planting beans and peas every year for so many reasons. They are beautiful! Think delicate white blossoms with centers of indigo and gold. They grow quickly. They climb adding visual texture over arbors and up trellises.

The protein, vitamin C and fiber they offer raise them up to super-food status. While they are growing food above, below the ground they are nourishing the soil making it so much more fertile for whatever we plant next!
We keep the greens and chop and drop for mulch when we are done growing them 💚🌿

They are just as versatile on a menu as they are in the soil! Snap peas are the perfect snack right off the vine when working in the garden. Throw them in a pan for a two minute sauté with some butter, garlic and tomatoes and your pasta will positively sing! Cut them on a bias, toss them with arugula, a bit of chèvre, sun dried tomato and a classic vinaigrette - oh goodness!

Our fava beans demand a little more consideration. If you pick them small you can simply grill them whole with a bit of olive oil and garlic to be rewarded with a complex, savory deliciousness that is better tasted than described.

If the beans are large and plump you are in for a bit more of a rewarding adventure! 🌿

For me it’s a 🧘 meditation: Snap an end, run my thumb up the seam to open the whole length then, back down popping the beans right out.
From there, blanch for a minute or two, then pop into and ice bath. Then you can pop the cooked beans right out of their little slips. The resulting bowl of bright green is perfect with a little salt but, utterly sublime blended into a creamy paste with a touch of tarragon or dill or chives and spread on toast or toss with pasta .

Well worth the effort, but still would love to know what tricks you can share for reducing prep time??



time??

Grateful for Spring and these garden to grill moments this rain quenched season has provided us!🙏🥔🔥🌿

is my FAVORITE way to cook. 🧄🌶️👩🏽‍🍳

Happy Friday everyone 💚👋🌿🌻🦋🐝🌷🌹

One of the many perks the landscape design profession is the opportunity to collaborate and create a shared vision with our clients. I just love witnessing when clients share ideas, work with our designs and then run with it and make it their own!!

To see our shared vision come to life in better ways than we could have ever anticipated and watching our clients grow alongside their garden - executing the design in surprising and beautiful ways is joyful and so inspiring!

Have a look at these before and after pictures that one of our values clients recently shared. As all gardens are, this has been an ever- evolving oasis which came to fruition over a few year in a joyful ongoing collaboration.

It really seems to have EVERYTHING - fruit trees, California Natives, water wise plants, expanded play and entertainment areas, and even a rose garden situated beside a beautiful arroyo - you name it we’ve considered it 🌷🍋🌿

The birds, butterflies and bees can’t resist this oasis and it’s so crazy to look back at how sad even the lawn looked when we first started several years back.

I’m so proud of this client’s efforts and the fruits of her labor.

Gardening and working with Nature can be a tough job with weather swings and shifting schedules, and so many other factors outside of our control, but when I see the improvements we are making and get feedback from clients like this: “Every time I come home and walk in my front gate I think if you with gratitude!” It all seems entirely worth it 💚🌿🦋🐝🌹

Sending a heartfelt you to my much appreciated client for sharing!!

📸 PS my amazing client who will remain anonymous took these gorgeous pictures 🦋








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Please consider supporting the Palos Verdes Land Conservency and White Point Preserve this Earth Day!!
Here are a few great ways to do so:
1. Head to the auction to bid for two hours worth of Consultation services from our team, or some of the other incredible items being offered!!
2. Buy tickets to Wild and Free - fun for the whole family!!
3. Consider donating your labor for Earth Day work days - fun in the sun with so many great people!! And the preserves are in FULL bloom - don’t miss it!!

Hope to see you there!!

Kicking off Native Plant week with some pictures of lovely CA Native spring blooming plants from my recent Central CA road trip. Comment below if you have questions about any of these 🌿

The hills are greener than I’ve EVER seen them and many are dotted with rainbows of color! The oaks are pushing new buds and growth and are so dramatic against the colorful backdrops.

Hope these help you feel as inspired as I do to re-wild the space you inhabit on this beautiful planet!

I’ve been receiving beautiful photos from clients of the super blooms occurring in their own yards and pictures from their wildflower hikes!! It’s so inspiring to see.

I’m super curious to hear where you have felt most inspired by Nature lately?

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Springtime is here !! And we are out chasing flowers for the next few days.
Can’t wait to share what we discover…🌻🌸🌺.

Another gorgeous surprise popped its head up in the Pachamama Inspired Test Garden today. This beauty is a California Native pacific coast hybrid iris purchased sometime last year at one of my most favorite nurseries in the world:

Needless to say, I’m really looking forward to picking up some more treasures at their wildflower festival coming up!!
Check out their website for free tickets. Hope to see you there!

In this ongoing Southern CA rainy weather, an interesting note is that Iris is Greek for rainbow 🌈 which I find especially fitting on these days. ☔️

Ribes sanguineum (red-flowering currant)

Currently the star of our office garden 🥰

This plant is tough, shade tolerant, unfussy, smells great and is a hummingbird magnet.
It blooms in the dead of our California winter when pollinators need support most.

What’s not to love about this gorgeous CA Native?!



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Check out this beautiful TimberTech deck we designed featuring gorgeous custom raised planters!!
I am so impressed with my incredible clients who built this on their own in just over a weekend!!
These oversized planters will be the perfect space to grow veggies and even a few fruit trees while gazing from the deck at all the wildlife activities in their new food forest garden! Here are some progress shots of this soon to be California Native and Edible Oasis. 🌿🥑🍊🍎🍓🌻🐝

Clean water is ESSENTIAL to all life in this beautiful world.
Your property offers the opportunity to both capture and filter rain water as well as grey water used inside your home.

In addition to using water-wise plants to optimize your water use, there are many other effective strategies both new and old to capture and distribute the water that finds its way to your property.

Recognizing that your land is a water-shed in its own right is a great first step in evaluating the most efficient use of all water that finds its way onto your property.

From bio-swales to gray-water catchment to waffle gardening and rock mulching the possibilities are almost endless!
What spaces or corners of your yard could you spare for a little experimentation?

If you need a little more guidance or inspiration, head on over to the “Seasonal Inspiration” tab of our website and read our recent Water Issue Seasonal Newsletter

Or better yet, use the link to schedule a Landscape Consultation at your site! www.PachamamaInspired.com

Swipe left to see how far this elegant space has come 😍

Where ever is the month of July going?!

Is time just flying for anyone else out there?!!

Between all the rain we have been experiencing here in Los Angeles and catching up from the holiday season, I feel like it’s just speeding by like lightning!

Pausing now to enjoy the first glimpse of sun in what feels like ages in this garden (ok maybe it’s only been about a week?🤣)

It’s just so refreshing to step out of my office and see the bees 🐝 buzzing away again enjoying this hearty winter bloomers here that have replaced my now dormant grapes. (Hardenbergia vialocea + Lepechinia fragrans)

Such brilliant and brave plants bringing joy to the world when so much of the rest of the garden is still deep in hibernation 😍

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Full of gratitude this holiday season ✨🌻❤️🙏🌲

Wishing everyone a safe and healthy holiday season and sending love your way from my family to yours ❤️❤️❤️
Photo taken in summer 2022
in Durango Colorado such an incredible rental dream of returning someday!!

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Thrilled to be working with these two incredibly inspiring men breaking ground at the newest CropSwapLA microfarm location! - Jamiah Hargins of CropSwapLA Mike Garcia of Enviroscape

We are standing on top of what was recently a water thirsty lawn and now transformed into an underground 5,000 gallon water recycling storage tank that will help support food production for hyper local fresh produce for families living in this community.

Now that the lawn is gone, and the structure for water recycling in place, the Mike’s highly skilled waterfall experts are getting to work on the pondless waterfall feature which will serve to recirculate the water in the tank while also supporting habitat and pollinators!

This is the first step in the rear yard portion of this project and will be the foundation for a permaculture inspired food forest I’ve worked super hard to design for the incredible family and organization that will be sharing this space.

The back yard will have many functions, so a well thought out plan was essential to ensure that the family, business and community get as much out of this space as possible. It will truly be feeding a village!

I’m so grateful for the trust Jamiah and his his beautiful family have placed in me to create a vision for the rear yard food forest garden, living area, meeting space, meditation area/outdoor gym and last but not least an outdoor community dining and event room (who’s up for a progressive microfarm to table dinner tour?!)
One thing is for sure, thanks to Jamiah and this incredibly talented crew from the Cropswap and Enviroscape teams this lawn has found it’s higher purpose.
Thanks for including me and Pachamama Inspired in this super exciting collaboration!!

Hello 👋 with another wonderful year coming to an end, it’s time to shift the lens to introduce myself to those of you who don’t know me!
In addition to being the founder of Pachamama Inspired, I’m also mom to an incredible 5 year old who shares my passionate love of Nature. He inspires me to focus on empowering my community to foster positive environmental change starting at home. While the company mission has grown and evolved over time, my main intention has been to facilitate the discovery of Nature starting at home. When people fall in love with their landscapes, they also fall in love with the Earth and become more closely connected with its inhabitants big and small.
I believe that a reprieve from the bustling city can be available to
each and every one of us within our own neighborhoods, no matter how much outdoor
space is available. By welcoming nature back into our yards, we can all
participate in creating new wildlife corridors throughout our neighborhoods and
experience the magic and wisdom Nature provides.
 
Looking back, I really have dabbled in gardening my whole life (my earliest gardening memory is as a kid in the mountains watching my mom shoo away the elk from our veggie patch with a broom) But my love for food (cooking first then growing) really ended up throwing me down the rabbit hole! My first a-ha gardening moment occurred during my time working as a line cook when we got to build a vegetable garden at an LAUSD elementary school where we not only supported the kids in growing food, but also gave them cooking lessons straight from the garden! This was an incredible experience.
 
A few years on, when what had been my dream career of working in the world of restaurant kitchens became impossible for me, I found myself at a complete loss of what to do with my life. As often seems to happen when I don't know what to do, I turned to volunteering, this time on regenerative farm outside of Boulder, CO. was a magical place. It opened my eyes to regenerative agriculture and while there some incredibly important seeds of my own essence were germinated there which continue growing within me to this day…
Continued in comments:

Imagine stepping outside into an oasis of singing birds, fluttering butterflies, and wafts of fragrance hanging in the cool air around you.
That is exactly what a well planned, waterwise garden will create for you.🦋🪴

Living plants not only look great, but they also clean the air around you and even help cool your property while other so called “waterwise” options like pavers or plastic turf will end up suffocating the soil, and established trees around your property making everything hotter (and creating even worse problems in the long run! 🥵)

Make the smart investment for your property and schedule a garden design consultation with our professional landscape design team. We will help you create an inspired garden that not only saves on your water bill each year but also brings so much additional joy your way in the process. 🌿🦋!👏✨

www.pachamamainspired.com