Airport Avenue Demonstration Gardens

Not one, but three demonstration gardens are arranged side by side at Santa Monica Airport, just across the street from the soccer fields at Airport Park. They use a mix of California native plants and other drought-tolerant plants while demonstrating three garden functions: Play, Relax, and Entertain.

The City of Santa Monica created the Airport Avenue gardens as part of its environmental and sustainability work. The gardens are located across from the park and directly next to The Cloverfield.

Compare how the Play, Relax, and Entertain gardens create different senses of space. The paths use recycled concrete and are structured for permeability, allowing water to soak naturally into the ground rather than running off.

Shade is created by trees, and the garden lines are defined with mixed understory plants. Together, the paths, trees, and understory planting provide tangible design ideas that can be adapted to a home garden.

The reliance on nonnative plants is the most puzzling part of the project. Each garden includes a tribute or two to native plants, but the plantings are overwhelmingly nonnative.

The clearest example is the Play garden's use of eastern redbud while the Entertain garden contains multiple western redbuds. In spite of this, there are some wonderful examples of native plants mixed into the gardens, including Pacific madrone (Arbutus menziesii) with its striking red bark.

Each of the three gardens creates a clearly defined sense of space. Recycled-concrete paths provide circulation while remaining permeable. Trees create shade, and mixed understory plants establish the edges and internal lines of each design.

The useful lesson is the relationship among function, hardscape, shade, and planting—not simply the selection of individual plants.

The strongest photographs compare the three garden concepts or show how plants, paths, recycled concrete, shade, and gathering spaces work together. Wide contextual images are more informative here than isolated flower closeups.

The Play garden gives children an immediately understandable way to compare landscape functions. However, this remains a compact demonstration site rather than a full children's garden or major recreation destination.

The three gardens offer practical examples of how to define outdoor space around a specific function. Their recycled-concrete paths demonstrate permeability, while trees and mixed understory plantings show how shade and planted edges can shape a garden.

The project also demonstrates that drought tolerance and native planting are not the same thing. A water-wise garden can still rely heavily on plants from outside the local ecosystem.

The gardens are at 3200 Airport Avenue, across from Airport Park and directly next to The Cloverfield. They are easy to miss because they are not positioned with especially high visibility.

This is a compact stop rather than a large garden destination. The most useful way to visit is to compare the three designs closely and look for ideas that can transfer to a home landscape.