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Photo Credit: Pasadena Heritage Please save the date of April 5, 2014, for a fundraising Garden Party, Seeds of Transformation, at one of Pasadena's masterpieces of architecture designed by Arthur S. and Alfred Heineman, the 1913 James Freeman House, located in the Oak Knoll District. PCGC is grateful to Michael Schneickert and Karen Otamura, who have presided over a meticulous restoration of this English-style Arts and Crafts home, with its five Batchelder tile fireplaces, intricate woodwork, and Judson Studio art

For folks who travel regularly to Boston or Cambridge, Massachusetts, it’s been a rewarding and exciting experience to watch Harvard University transform part of a boring and unproductive expanse of green turf lawn in front of Lowell House, a student residence hall, into a community garden. This raised-bed garden truly shows the transformation that can be accomplished when an institution reevaluates an old value – a perfect lawn. When you consider the huge amount of water and chemicals it takes to

Above: All the flowers in this lovely basket – one of 20 purchased by the Conservancy for our fall fundraising dinner – were grown at John Muir High School and assembled by student gardeners; the $30 Muir Ranch charges for each table arrangement goes to support this great program. Having formed in July 2012, the Pasadena Community Gardens Conservancy was able to organize, raise funds, and issue $7,000 in grants after just nine months. In March 2013, we announced a total of

One of the best things about the Pasadena area – really about California in general – is our year-round farmers’ markets. Aside from gardening, they are the next-best way to keep fit, enjoy the outdoors, and be around fresh locally-grown produce. Two faves are South Pasadena on Thursday nights – for Japanese vegetables, prepared Indian food, rotisserie chicken and salsa from the Grillmasters truck, and great heirloom tomatoes – and Villa Park on Tuesday mornings. Villa Park vendors have beautiful, and

In featured photo: L to R, bottom row: Susan Kranwinkle, Marilyn Brumder, Halaine Rose. Top row: Dr. Holt Rose, Susan Osen, Dr. Eric Walsh, Eileen Read, Jessica Korzenecki, George Brumder. The 30-plus community leaders who created the Pasadena Community Gardens Conservancy have been greatly influenced by Dr. Eric Walsh, our city’s Director of Public Health, in focusing our philanthropy on our city’s “food desert” areas. A group of The Conservancy’s founders met with Dr. Walsh n November 2012, to seek his views on