Members of the SeaWeeders gardening club give their time every week to maintain the grounds of the Solana Beach, CA, Post Office.
An initial cleanup in the early 2000s involved dozens of volunteers from several groups trimming trees, pruning overgrown plants, and removing several dump trucks’ worth of weeds and debris.
With a major renovation made possible by a county grant and donations, among the helping hands were members of the SeaWeeders, a local gardening club.
Since that day, a small group of club members has continued to maintain the space weekly — weeding, planting and greeting the community members as they walk by, club member Jane Morton said, pointing out that the Post Office is just a block from the beach on a heavily traveled sidewalk.
“Every Saturday we get thanks and compliments, and the community then goes inside and thanks the people at the counter at having such a beautiful garden out front,” club member Jane Morton said.
A few years after the initial cleanup, a member of the club who is a landscape designer created a new plan for the site.
It was apparent that the space had been professionally designed at one point, Morton said, with good structural bones, so most of the existing scrubs and rock formations were kept.
The SeaWeeders added new elements such as low-water succulents, benches and decomposed granite pathways.
Morton said this was done with the permission of the local postmaster, and the SeaWeeders shouldered the cost as well as the labor.
“We get many visitors from so many states, so many cities in those states, and they always stop to tell us how beautiful the place is compared to any Post Office they have ever been to, not just their hometown, but other cities they have traveled to,” Morton said.
Solana Beach Postmaster Richard Zamora appreciates the work the SeaWeeders do.
“They do a dynamite job maintaining our beautiful landscape here. It truly is a lovely scene,” he said.
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