Sweetwater Collaborative

Projects Home

Here we have compiled some stories, and before and after photos, of projects that Sweetwater Collaborative has done over the last ten years. Enjoy the project profiles we have uploaded! We have also included community demonstration gardens by other organizations as well as Sweetwater.

Here are some projects done by Sweetwater Collaborative and some by others. Our Executive Director, Barbara Wishingrad, worked on most of the community projects led by other organizations: Water Wise Community Demonstration Sites in the Santa Barbara area

2019

Earthworks for Erosion Control and Incredible Infiltration- Butterfly Garden at Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens- partnered with Master Gardeners and City of Santa Barbara Parks Department- November 2019

Turquoise, Orange and White Rain Garden- November 2019

Women's Empowerment Series: Tanks for the Rain Workshop January 2019

Women's Empowerment Series: Washer Water Powers Plants Workshop March 2019

2018

Ollas Workshop, UCSB Family Student Housing Gardens, May 2018

Lovin' Lagunitas Rainwater Harvesting Workshop, June 2018

Fabulous Flow to Feijoas, March 2018

Impact Hub Tropical Garden, February 2018

2017

Impact Hub Native Garden Planting, December 2017

Downtown Downspout to Tank workshop, November 2017

Rain Barrels of Laughs workshop, April 2017

Planting a Berry Nice Yard, February 2017

Curb Cuts! Following the Flow in the Parking Lot, February 2017

Wake Up and Smell the Rain Garden, February 2017

2016

Carpinteria Valley Water District Rainwater Harvesting Demonstration Garden- Planting Extravaganza November 2016

An Anapamu Planting Adventure, November 2016

Expansive Earthworks Workshop, October 2016

Dive Down Laundry to Landscape Workshop, September 2016

Carpinteria Valley Water District Rainwater Harvesting Demonstration Garden - earthworks workshop September 2016

Via Real Rain Garden, August 2016

An Alfresco Anapamu Adventure, August 2016

Tres Palmas Triangle Transformation May 2016

Nurturing Natives, Naturally Parts 1 and 2 April 2016

Tank on Tunnel Ridge March 2016

Littel Creekbed, Big Mouintain, Many Plants March 2016

Creekbed, Floodplains, and Terraces, oh my! -Jan-Mar 2016

Let's Make a Berry Nice Yard- Laundry to landscape workshop- Feb 2016

Let's Make a Berry Nice Yard- rainwater harvesting/planting workshop- Jan 2016

2015

Sweet Weekday Tank Workshop Nov 2015

Permaculture Paradise in Carpinteria- a year long project -three workshops + March-Nov 2015

The Fox and Lizard - three workshops+ to create a water wise English cottage garden June- Nov 2015

Welcome Washer Water Workshop June 2015

Island View Greywater Installation July 2015

Permaculture Starfish and Hugelkulture May 2015

Dig a Delightful Dry Creekbed March 2015

Palms Up! Front Yard Transformation Feb 2015

2014

Got Greywater! Laundry to landscape workshop Feb 2014

Got Greywater Growing! workshop Mar 2014

Tank to Rain Garden Workshop April 2014

"A New Paradigm" Workshops One and Two, May 2014

Laundry to Landscape in a Butterfly Garden June 2014

Garcia Road Greywater August 2014

Branched Drain in a Greene Garden Sept 2014

L2L workshop for professionals October 2014

RWH workshop for professionals November 2014

2013

Food Forest on the Mesa June and July 2013

Tanks for the Rain August 2013

Grey Water to Green Landscape Nov 2013

Slimline Tanks Installation Dec 2013

Ribbons of Rain Garden Dec 2013

2012

Laundry to Landscape July 2012

Water Wise Victorian Garden October 2012

2011

Native Garden Redo in Ellwood

Ollas workshop - UCSB Family Student Housing Gardens, May 19, 2018

On Saturday, May 19, Sweetwater Collaborative taught a workshop in making and irrigating with ollas at the UCSB Family Student Housing "Storke" garden. Josh Graning was the primary instructor. "Olla" means 'pot' and in this context, that term refers to porous clay pots that are buried in the soil and filled with water that seeps out slowly to water plants over time. Using ollas in your garden or raised bed cuts down on the frequency and time a human being needs to irrigate plants; at the same time, plants have more consistent access to water.

Water Wise Community Demonstration Sites in the Santa Barbara area

Want to get some idea of what water harvesting looks like? Visit one or more of these community demonstration sites created between 2012 and 2018:

Spencer Adams Park, 1216 De La Vina, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. Ocean Friendly Gardens led a series of hands-on workshops to create a dry creekbed fed by rainwater from a nearby roof, alongside a native garden in an area that had been lawn. Barbara Wishingrad of Sweetwater Collaborative helped to create this project that was completed in November 2012.

Santa Barbara Association of Realtors, 1415 Chapala St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. Multiple downspouts are redirected to large basins to collect roof runoff in this garden that flourishes without irrigation most of the year. Wilson Environmental was the contractor. The project included a hands-on workshop that Barbara Wishingrad of Sweetwater Collaborative participated in, in September 2013.

Santa Barbara City College, 721 Cliff Dr, Santa Barbara, CA 93109. A 2500 gal raintank was installed in a hands-on workshop in January 2014 by Sweetwater Collaborative and Watershed Management Group. You can see the tank behind the Facilities building just to the west of the Lifescape Garden. The tank overflow is directed into the garden. Barbara Wishingrad and other Sweetwater Collaborative colleagues helped to create this project. Fred Hunter (one of Sweetwater's instructors) and his Landscape Construction class students enhanced the tank overflow/earthworks in 2017.

Schott Center, 310 W. Padre Sr, Santa Barbara, CA 93105. A dry creekbed and native garden was created in two hands-on workshops, led by Watershed Management Group of Tucson, AZ, also in January 2014. The garden is fed by rainwater harvested from a nearby roof, and can be seen on Padre St, near the Auditorum. Barbara Wishingrad and other colleagues of Sweetwater Collaborative helped to create this project.

Carpinteria Valley Water District offices at 1301 Santa Ynez Ave, Carpinteria, CA 93013. Sweetwater Collaborative led two hands-on workshops in September and November 2016 to create rainwater harvesting earthworks and a plant pallete of mostly succulents as a demonstration garden at the Water District headquarters. About 25 volunteers participated in each workshop.

Wake Center, 300 N Turnpike Rd, Santa Barbara, CA 9311. In the front parking lot, you can find two sets of curb cuts, on two different islands. These cuts pave the way for stormwater to flow into the mulch basins on the islands, irrigating vegetation there instead of gathering speed and pollutants as it makes it way downhill. Just off of that parking lot, alongside the Auditorium, there is a rain garden that uses water collected on two sections of the roof. Barbara Wishingrad, Fred Hunter, and Josh Graning of Sweetwater Collaborative led students from the Advanced Green Gardener class in creating these projects in February 2017.

Impact Hub Funk Zone at 10 E Yanonali St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. Around the back off of the parking lot, there is a native garden in the narrow spaces, and a tropical garden in the triangular space, that is fed by air conditioning condensate. Both gardens were put in in Sweetwater Collaborative workshops in December 2017 and February 2018.

The Butterfly Garden at Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens, 1500 Santa Barbara St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 was in need of ersoion control. The UC Master Gardeners, who tend the Butterfly Garden, partnered with Sweetwater Collaborative and the City of Santa Barbara to put in some rolling dips across the DG path, mulch basins, and a low retaining wall in November 2019. Problem solved.

air conditioning condensate harvesting , carbon sequestration , community building , earthworks , rain gardens , rain tanks , rainwater harvesting

Native Garden Redo in Ellwood

This was one of the first projects Barbara Wishingrad worked on in the Santa Barbara area. The homeowners were concerned about rainwater pooling on the side of the house and wanted a complete front yard redo. They asked for a combination of native plants and fruit trees, and they wanted to stop dogs from using the front yard to do their business. Barbara worked on a design and brought in a crew through WMG's Water Harvesting Certification Course in August 2011. Anthony Castelo, also of Sweetwater, was one of the participants. The yard was transformed in two workshops.

Before picture:

before picture of front yard in Ellwood

Here are the course participants hard at work:

creating a native garden with earthworks in Ellwood

This is how the front yard looked in spring 2013:

after picture of Native Garden Redo in Ellwood

Water Wise Victorian Garden

A formal Victorian garden is not what one usually thinks of when imagining integrating water harvesting and drought tolerant plants into a landscape, but that's what was part of the landscape remodel at this Victorian residence on Santa Barbara's Westside. We found what plants fit into both concepts, and helped make it happen, from 8:30am-1:30pm on Saturday October 6, 2012.

Barbara Wishingrad was the instructor for this hands-on workshop through the Santa Barbara Green Living Co-op.

We helped this couple put in a laundry to landscape greywater system in July 2012 and returned in October to add a raingarden on the side of their front yard. During the previous winter, stormwater had flowed from the back yard and off of the roof, pooled on the driveway and then ran off into the street. This installation was designed to capture this rainwater, save on their water bill, and provide beauty and habitat in the yard. We think we succeeded, don't you!?

After photos, soon after workshop in fall 2012

And, nine months later, after just one winter's rain (and a dry winter at that), the plants have blossomed and grown.

Our Victorian Rain Garden in June 2015

Ribbons of Rain Garden Dec 2013

Our workshop host did not waste water irrigating her lawn. And she was looking for a way to use the water from her roof is a way that would enhance or beautify her living space/yard. Bermuda grass was hand removed and then area was sheet mulched for two months. In just five short hours the yard was transformed! Ribbons of Rain Garden hidden beneath the mulch will nurture the drought tolerant plants that have flowers of many colors. In turn, the plants will attract birds and butterflies, and grow large and prosper.

Laundry to Landscape workshop July 2012

Barbara Wishingrad was one of the instructors for this workshop that was co-sponsored by the City of Santa Barbara Water Conservation Division and the Green Living Co-op. Our homeowners had just bought this Victorian era farmhouse when they sought our help in putting in a laundry to landscape system. With the help of community members, the workshop transformed a bleak backyard into the beginning of a lush and productive food system. PVC was used to plumb the system until the pipe got out of the house and then HDPE was used to run into the garden. Now two passion fruit, a guava and banana tree flourish on the greywater from the washer.

In 2015, it looked like this:

As it looks today

Slimline tanks installation Dec 2013

The hosts for this project had spent a year in Australia where they saw the prolific use of rainwater tanks. They were interested in adding a tank to their recently remodeled landscape and had only a narrow strip next to the house where one would fit. Slimline tanks are made for just such purposes. After a bit of researching and measuring, our hosts decided to put in two Slimlines, one that holds 530 gallons and another that holds 265 gallons.

The tanks fit next to the wall a ways from the downspout so we designed a wet system to get the water into the tanks. Eight volunteers separated in two crews put the piping and fittings together and dug the basin for the overflow.

Grey water to Green landscape workshop Nov 2013

We began with a lawn. So often it begins with a lawn. Actually we began with a lawn and an idea. Our host wanted to conserve water, and was attracted to the idea of using greywater in her yard. So we got rid of the lawn. Before the workshop. And then put in two fruit trees, three blueberry bushes and some raised beds. And sent the greywater to an existing lemon tree too. Six volunteers, three family members and two instructors made it all happen. In the end, the trees and shrubs were flourishing on washer water.

Tanks for the Rain August 2013

Here's the story of Sweetwater's first tank installation workshop, Tanks for the Rain!

Our homeowner was interested in putting in one or more rainwater tanks to have emergency water and to use rainwater to help to water edibles in the yard nearby--fruit trees and a veggie garden. The catchment surface for this tank is the roof of a small building (the "chateau") in the backyard. The roof and overhang measure 204 sq ft. Therefore, we could capture 122 gallons of water in a 1" rain, or 2200 gallons in an average year in Santa Barbara with 18" of rainfall.

water harvesting tank will fit between the avocado and lemon trees

We decided that a 1320 gallon tank was the best value for the money, and best fit our needs. Since we typically have dry periods between rain in the winter, the homeowner could water his trees and garden with the tank water during those periods in the winter, hold off on using tank water during the spring and early summer, use up to 3/4 of what's stored in the tank in the hot months of July, August, and Sept, and still have a reserve for emergencies that could be used right before the rainy season begins again. If during the rainy season we get so much rain that the tank overflows, we designed a system that fed that extra water to five of the fruit trees.

Here are the before pictures of the side of the chateau where the rainhead and first flush will go, and the area where the tank will be installed:

Before the tank arrived, we created a base of sand and bricks:

measuring the base for the rainwater tankleveling the area for the tank and setting the brickssand was laid in between the bricks, leveled, and wet down

Our PreFab tank arrived about a week before the workshop, and we got it onto the base:

PreFab Bushman tank delivered by the freight servicerolling the Bushman 1320 rainwater tank to its new home

The day of the workshop, we connected all the plumbing and dug the trench and swales for the overflow, moved a lot of mulch, and had a general good time:

gluing the fittings for the rainheadthe overflow pipe daylights into a pop-upchecking the depth of the pipe before its buriedfrom the pop-up, a five-starred swale goes to five fruit treesthanks to the crew that made this all happen

Here's what the tank and components looked like after the workshop. Since then, the pipes have been painted brown to protect them from the sun.