SF Now Has 30 New Sidewalk Gardens
San Francisco now has 30 beautiful new sidewalk gardens. Sidewalk gardens beautify neighborhoods, create a natural habitat for butterflies, bees, and other pollinators, reduce stormwater runoff, and increase the lifespan of adjacent trees.
SF Parks Alliance took to Instagram to send a thank you to its volunteers for helping to beautify San Francisco’s Slow Streets with help from Friends of the Urban Forest.
“Thank you to the incredible volunteers and staff who came out to Slow Lyon Street in NoPa last week to prep the sidewalks and plant 9 new sidewalk gardens! Lyon Street is a little greener thanks to you💚 With these planted, we’ve now installed 30 sidewalk gardens across SF Slow Streets in the last year in partnership with @friendsoftheurbanforest🙌”
WHAT ARE SIDEWALK GARDENS?
Our Sidewalk Garden program installs gardens on public sidewalks in front of homes and businesses. We design the garden, take care of permitting, manage concrete removal, and choose plants best suited for the site. Residents maintain the garden after the installation.
WHY ARE GARDENS BENEFICIAL?
they create a natural habitat for butterflies, bees, and other pollinators
they increase the lifespan of adjacent trees by allowing more water to reach their roots
they capture stormwater runoff, which lowers the risk of flooding and reduces discharges of untreated water into the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean.
WHO CAN GET A SIDEWALK GARDEN
We can plant sidewalk gardens when all of the following criteria are met:
Sidewalks have concrete that we can remove.
Our funding allows us to remove concrete and plant gardens in its place.
Sidewalks are at least 10 feet wide.
The curb should be at least 10 feet away from the building to ensure that there is enough unobstructed sidewalk to meet permit and accessibility requirements.
A block has multiple interested residents.
Our community-based sidewalk garden projects transform an entire block. We plan projects based on interest.
We have secured grants for the neighborhood.
We are always looking for grants to fund our Sidewalk Gardens program. The grants subsidize most of the cost. Depending on the grant, we may ask residents to cover permit fees.
HOW TO GET A SIDEWALK GARDEN FROM US
Step 1: FILL OUT OUR INTEREST FORM
Fill out the interest form so we can identify areas of high interest and search for grants to fund your area.
Step 2: BUILD INTEREST ON YOUR BLOCK AND NEIGHBORHOOD
Become a Neighborhood Organizer and get your neighbors to fill out the Interest Form.
Read more at Friends of the Urban Forest
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