Mission Greenbelt Gardens

I've had the joy of meeting a lot of really excellent people through gardening and art and community work, and sometimes those people overlap all of those categories in a serendipitous and lovely sort of way.  One of the multi-talented folks that I've been lucky enough to cross paths with is Amber Hasselbring of Mission Greenbelt Gardens.  

Amber is an artist, native plant enthusiast and sidewalk gardener, and combines all three through the Mission Greenbelt Project, which is working towards linking green spaces through the Mission District with California native sidewalk gardens.  I love this project because it is so important on so many different levels, sidewalk gardens are great for our watershed, and native gardens are both beautiful and low maintenance, but also attract native beneficial critters that manage pests and pollinate other plants (like our food gardens!)

We had just picked Amber's backyard plums the week before when she had mentioned there was a work day at the sidewalk garden that wraps around Mission Pool, so we said, "Great! What time should we be there?"  

photo by Brenaja Cates

photo by Brenaja Cates

Kevin becoming one with the plants.

photo by Brenaja Cates

Sticky monkey flower!

photo by Brenaja Cates

Betsy Davis and Burton liberating the corner plants.  Betsy is an awesome SF gardener and arborist that introduced me to Amber.  Yay for community and yay for women gardeners!

Burton, Amber and Brenaja dumping those pesky weeds over the fence!