'They've never seen anything like this': Their DIY garden is inspiring the block
Water-hungry lawns are symbols of Los Angeles' past. In this series, we spotlight yards with alternative, low-water landscaping built for the future.
LOS ANGELES — Even in his early years, Stephen Reid knew he was destined to work and inspire with plants.
Today, Reid, 35, is the assistant curator and head gardener of the rose garden at the Huntington Library, Art Gallery and Botanical Gardens, a job he achieved after years of DIY studies, garden volunteer work and multiple plant and gardening certifications.
He's earned certificates as an organic gardener through Grow L.A. Gardens courses, a UC Cooperative Extension master gardener and a California native plant landscaper, skills he's honed outside the fixer-upper home he and his wife Ashley bought in Watts.
Together they dug out the weedy 940-square-foot front lawn and parkway by themselves, shoveled in mountains of composted horse manure and wood-chip mulch and relandscaped — twice! — with drought-tolerant and native plants, herbs, vegetables and a passion fruit vine so massive and productive that it supplies half the neighborhood with fruit.
They also rebuilt their DJ business in L.A., and started a family: Their daughter, Phoenix, was born July 29, just four months after Reid started his new job at the Huntington. It's a busy life — "We learned to live with two to three hours of sleep" — but Reid
