Photos: Altadena Heritage Maintains Old Marengo Park

Spring cleaning isn't just for homes, as Altadena Heritage board members showed Saturday morning when they helped to remove weeds and spread compost at Old Marengo Park.

See a photo gallery of the park unveiling here.

Altadena Heritage board member Michele Zack shared more with Patch about the park's evolution and maintenance:

The Pocket Park at Woodbury and Marengo was created as a waterwise demonstration garden of native plants from a triangle of dirt left over from when when LA County realigned and widened Woodbury and Marengo in the 1960s.

The Altadena Watershed Committee, Arroyos and Foothills Conservancy, and Altadena Heritage were community partners on this project, which was funded through the Metropolitan Water District's "City Makeover" grant, Supervisor Michael Antonovich's office, and others.

Altadena Heritage has taken care of the park for the past three years. The County does not maintain it, and since last year it has been unwatered except from rain because Arroyos and Foothills Conservancy (AFC) cut off water once the drought tolerant plants were established and no longer required irrigation.

Heritage and AFC paid for the park's first tree pruning last summer, which revealed the forms of the dozen or so trees now growing up there. This opened up the park and created the landscape neighbors, pedestrians, and motorists enjoy, and might wonder about.

On Saturday Altadena Heritage put in a morning of work to remove weeds and spread compost. Participating were Board Members John Zoraster, David Mosher, Nancy Romero, Mark Goldschmidt, and Michele Zack.

We will schedule at least one more morning's work to complete park spring cleaning; anyone who would like to help, please contact altadenaheritage@earthlink.net for details.

This park is meant to show local gardeners how to create beautiful landscapes with little or no water except that which falls from the sky.

What do you think of Old Marengo Park? Are you interested in helping with it?