Creating HabiTaft: A Native Garden

ACE mentor students learned about the landscape architecture profession and played a large role in helping to construct the garden including the final placement of the new greenhouse which will be used to propagate plant material for the garden and adjacent canyon.
Brooke Pietz

San Diego Chapter of ASLA facilitated the design and installation of an educational and native garden?EUR??,,????'??+The HabiTaft Garden?EUR??,,????'??+ for William H. Taft Middle School in Serra Mesa, Calif. The chapter partnered with the Friends of Ruffin Canyon and the ACE Mentor Program. A dedication ceremony took place at the garden site.

Principal Mike George welcomed guests, followed by remarks from San Diego Superintendent of Schools, Bill Kowba and Gary Petill, Food Services Director for the San Diego Unified School District. As part of the celebration there were demonstrations that included compost, worms, planting and native plants.

Donations came from several vendors including Decorative Stone Solutions, Rain Bird Corp., Southwest Boulder & Stone, Victor Stanley Inc. and Wallace Laboratories.

After two years of conceptualizing, designing, and building, HabiTAFT was finally completed this spring and welcomes visitors into the space.

Landscape architects and landscape designers who donated their time for design services include: Laura Burnett, FASLA and ASLA members Emily Henning, Brooke Pietz, Ieszic Formeller, Jon Wreschinsky, JT Barr, Kevin Mock, Leslie Ryan, Mark Moss, Tim Pruss and Pat Hart.

Monetary donations from landscape architecture firms includes: AECOM, Burnett Land and Water, Dave Strickland, Howard Associates, Kimley-Horn and Associates, KTU+A Planning and Landscape Architecture and Rick Engineering Company.

ASLA volunteers developed and hosted design workshops for ACE Mentor High School Students as part of the Legacy Project. The first workshop was held at the site where the students learned how to prepare a site-analysis plan by observing and documenting existing site conditions. The subsequent workshops were held at The New School of Architecture and Design in downtown San Diego. These workshops led the students through the landscape architecture-design process from concept through construction documents.

The HabiTaft Garden Legacy Project celebrates ASLA's mission to lead, educate and participate in the careful stewardship, wise planning and artful design of our cultural and natural environments.