// Ashley Coon
Crevice Garden & Misc.
// Ashley Coon
Crevice Garden & Misc.
PROJECT
In 2016, I took a break from practicing architecture and moved from Los Angeles to the nearby Mojave Desert near the small town of Joshua Tree. I bought a house on 2 1/2 acres (see "Joshua Tree Residence 01" in the Projects list for more info), and found myself eventually managing a native plant nursery for a local non-profit organization called the Mojave Desert Land Trust. Madena Asbell, then Director of Plant Conservation at MDLT and who started the organization's nursery, seed bank, and herbarium wanted to create a demonstration garden on the property to showcase MDLT's mission to the public as an educational tool. Because of my background in architecture, I suggested making a design vision for an unused and neglected area of the MDLT headquarters property that was a little over an acre in size. The intent was to make a master plan and design package that could be used as a capital campaign to raise money for the construction of the demonstration garden, a future event pavilion, and renovations to the parking areas.
At some point, we had a little bit of donor funding as a non-profit and were set to host another AmeriCorps NCCC group (who are tasked with helping out non-profit organizations on specific projects throughout the year), and the bold idea was proposed that maybe we have enough to do the work ourselves already along with help from volunteers. The design unfolded into a DIY showcase for testing different sustainable building materials, techniques, water harvesting strategies, and highlighting various biomes of the Mojave Desert ecoregion. The hope is that it could help inspire local residents to appreciate native plants and adapt these techniques to their own projects, saving water use and restoring lost habitat.
The demonstration garden, officially named the "Mojave Desert Discovery Garden" and open to the public, uses various materials such as redwood lumber, salvaged juniper lumber from restoration projects where it was deemed invasive, gabion baskets, stones and boulders, terraces, and swales. The garden is divided into segments that represent various biomes found throughout the Mojave as well as specific types of gardens such "pollinator", "ethno-botanical", "desert tortoise habitat", "native bee", etc. and forms a continuous and accessible path.
In the earliest stages, the garden site was part of a parking lot that had been in use since the original days of the building (which was a commercial plant nursery built in the 1980s) and consisted of mostly compacted hard-pan soil that could be mistaken for concrete. The soil was mechanically de-compacted and subtle terracing was added to mitigate storm erosion and to provide better accessibility. While deceptive in photos, the height difference between the parking lot and top of the slope can be as much as 8'. The headquarters is located along Highway 62 so taller gabion walls were erected to soften the traffic noise. Over time, the trees planted along the slope will mature and further quiet the garden as well as provide dappled shade and erosion control via their robust root systems. As mentioned in previous projects, I'm a firm believer in designing the infrastructure as the foundation which will later accommodate what gets planted where and maximize its function, resilience, and sustainability.
If in Joshua Tree, visit the garden and learn more about MDLT:
https://www.mdlt.org/mojave-desert-discovery-garden
Construction Process
2020
2025
* Images courtesy of Danielle Segura