Real gardens. Real strategies. A hopeful vision for fire-ready communities.

Come be inspired by the gardens — and the people — who have been designing and building landscapes of resilience for years.

Across Altadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre, a growing community of designers, homeowners, and ecological stewards has been quietly demonstrating something powerful: when we work with natural systems, our landscapes can become more beautiful, more resilient, and more alive.

Ecotone Landscapes: A Resilient Garden Tour invites you to step inside these living examples.

This curated tour will showcase real gardens that demonstrate whole-systems thinking and regenerative design strategies for building fire-ready, climate-resilient communities in Southern California.

Hosted in neighborhoods along the urban-wildland interface (aka the ecotone) where human communities meet the wild landscape, this tour offers a rare opportunity to experience landscapes designed with soil, water, plants, and people working together.

Rather than focusing on fear-based narratives about wildfire or vegetation removal, these gardens demonstrate how regeneratively-focused landscapes can strengthen the resilience of homes and neighborhoods.

Cost

$20 per person

What You’ll Experience

Participants will visit gardens that demonstrate how thoughtful design can:

• Build living soil that holds water longer

• Harvest and integrate rainfall

• Support native habitat, biodiversity, food production, and more

• Slow wind and ember movement through layered plant communities

• Strengthen resilience at the neighborhood scale

These gardens serve as living classrooms, offering inspiration and practical strategies for anyone interested in regenerative landscapes and fire-ready communities.

Who Should Attend

This tour is designed for anyone interested in the future of resilient landscapes, including:

• Ecotoners - residents living along the urban-wildland interface

• Neighbors rebuilding homes and gardens

• Homeowners and gardeners curious about regenerative landscape practices

• Landscape architects, designers, and architects

• Public officials and community leaders working on resilience and land stewardship

• Nonprofits and organizations supporting climate adaptation

• Anyone curious about whole-systems landscape design
  

What You’ll Learn

The gardens featured on the tour highlight key principles of regenerative landscape design:

• Whole-System Design
  Integrating soil, water, plants, and people as interconnected living systems.

• Water Optimization
  Rain gardens, bioswales, and infiltration strategies that help keep rainfall in the landscape.

• Resilient Plant Communities
  Climate-adapted plant palettes that support biodiversity while reducing irrigation and maintenance.

• Fire-Ready Landscapes
  Design approaches that consider wind, embers, community-based design, and relationship rather than simple vegetation removal.

• Neighborhood-Scale Thinking
  How coordinated landscapes across properties can strengthen watershed health and community resilience.

Tour Format

Participants will visit several gardens throughout Altadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre that demonstrate different approaches to regenerative landscape design.

The tour will include:

• Self-guided and docent-led garden visits

• Educational handouts explaining design strategies

• Opportunities to meet designers and homeowners

• Each garden will highlight specific lessons about resilience, beauty, and ecological stewardship.

Why This Tour Matters

As communities across Southern California face uncertainty with weather and climate extremes, the landscapes around our homes and in our neighborhoods matter more than ever.

This tour offers a hopeful and practical vision for the future — one where neighborhoods in the urban-wildland interface become living systems that support both people and the land.

Join us and discover what resilient landscapes can look and feel like.

Ways to Get Involved

Ecotone Landscapes is a community effort to inspire resilient, regenerative landscapes across Altadena and Pasadena. You can support the tour as a sponsor, donor, or collaborator. Sponsors and donors help make the event accessible while supporting educational materials and tour logistics. Collaborators help share knowledge, connect organizations, and expand community engagement.

If you feel inspired by this work, we invite you to be part of growing more resilient landscapes in our neighborhoods.

Resilient communities grow from the ground up — soil, water, plants, and people working together.