The San Diego Surfrider inaugural Garden Assistance Day installed the first ocean-friendly garden (OFG) earlier this month in Bird Rock. Surfrider members and volunteers helped resident Steve Roeder re-landscape his front yard. With the help of professional architect Jeremy Sison of Artemisia Landscape Design, locals put together a garden that incorporated California native plants while promoting Surfrider’s basic OFG ingredients: conservation, permeability and retention. Now, residents have a local, eco-friendly template to recreate for their own homes. Roeder’s garden now consists of chalk lady finger, sea pink and thyme that recycle rainwater back into the garden rather than heading into the street. It is the final step in the OFG program which gives locals the educational tools to dig deep into their own landscaping in an eco-friendly way. Originally, juniper and grass were part of Steve’s yard. These plants that are non-native to California contributed to the excessive amount of pollutants in the ocean and beaches. More often than not, San Diego yards are designed without thought to runoff. Using plants that are non-native to California requires residents to water more and feed with more pesticides and fertilizers. The result drives these chemicals straight into the drainage system. Water running down San Diego streets is often filled with pesticides and fertilizers from residents watering their lawn or from an at-home car wash, and it all runs into the ocean. “Surfrider decided to come up with some proactive solutions to some of the issues facing our oceans and beaches,” said Dylan Edwards, co-chair for San Diego’s ocean-friendly gardens program. “We realized that a lot of the pollution issues come from our fresh water cycle. The whole part of that is the way people have [built] their landscape in San Diego.” The program’s three-step class provides residents with the means to beautify a refreshing landscape while also having fun. “We have the resources that we can connect people with to try and make this as easy as possible,” Edwards said. Workshops are offered two to three times a year with a classroom workshop, hands-on workshop and the garden assistance day, the latter of which happened June 6. “The idea is to comprehensively learn [Surfrider methods] so that each homeowner can install their own ocean front garden,” Edwards said. “One of the outcomes of the garden assistance day is that you get a model garden for people to check out.” Now Roeder’s home acts as an example of an ocean friendly-garden in San Diego’s own front yard.