Community Corner

Patch Give 5: Tending the Garden

Patch employees donate five business days a year to volunteering. This time, we rake leaves at the Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden.

The sweet smell of earth, cool breeze and occasional light drizzle gave an early taste of fall at the Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden on Friday as Beach Cities Patch staffers spent the morning raking leaves and clearing debris at the site.

The local Patch team volunteered at the garden as part of Patch's nationwide Give 5 initiative, in which employees across the country are given five paid work days throughout the year to volunteer in the communities they cover.

Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden maintenance director Julie Gonella gave us a tour of the garden before our volunteer assignments commenced.

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She explained that the plants we were assigned to tend to were native foliage and have adapted to the South Bay’s rare Mediterranean climate, which has wet winters and dry summers.

For example, many of the plants have leaves with gray or silvery tones in order to reflect sunlight and heat during the hot summer season. The leaves are waxy in texture and small so less water evaporates off of the surface.

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Many plants in the garden have shown signs of "summer dormancy," in which plants lose their leaves until a new season of rain arrives.

Gonella showed us Patch volunteers where fallen leaves had accumulated on a coyote bush—our task was to clear the leaves. A hummingbird zipped by as we gathered our rakes and tended to the bush.

Finding my place among the trees, gooseberries, buckwheat and grasses, I was proud that Patch could be a part of keeping this natural habitat alive.

Earlier Patch Give 5 stories:


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