images by Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times

While I was in LA, I had the luxury of reading the Los Angeles Times Daily Paper regularly, ( I love the paper but never have time to work my way through them).  Anyway, in my vacationing ability to make time for such things, I came across this great  front garden.  Arlene and Desiree wanted to live near water, but given the 980-square-foot frontyard, a little stream made more sense.   Now the garden is has become a community place where children stop and wade and walkers rest on the redwood bench at the edge of the sidewalk.

Does anyone really design their front garden to be a pocket park for their neighborhood?  This is pretty rare in my experience but wouldn’t it be interesting if we all started looking at our gardens (at least those in the front of our homes) as community places?

The garden was built by  California Waterscapes in La Crescenta and designed by landscape architect Barry Thau.