Smart Yards Education

01/06/2026

✨🌱 Happy New Year from Smart Yards 🌱✨

Wishing you a year that’s sustainable, beautiful, and peaceful for your yards, your communities, and our shared planet. Here’s to growing smarter, greener, and kinder together in the year ahead. 💚🌎💙

12/06/2025

🌿💧 Excited to host a Laundry-to-Food-Forest Greywater Workshop!
We’ll turn a simple laundry system into a regenerative water source for fruit trees and perennial guilds- showing how easy, affordable, and impactful greywater can be for water stewardship, climate resilience, and community building.

Hands-on learning, real skills, and a greener future. Let’s grow it together! 🌱✨
Thanks to our sponsors: Smart Yards Gardening and Design Co-op, Capitol Wholesale Nursery, OASIS HOME, Valley Water, A Slice of New York, Human Agenda, Cómo plantar agua: Permacultura para el buen vivir , Occidental Arts & Ecology Center with Elizabeth Sarmiento

11/23/2025

Gracias a la tierra 🌎 Gracias al agua 💦 . Gracias al sol 🌞

10/22/2025

🌿 Lawn conversion is river restoration at home. 💧

Representing team, Elizabeth, Mario Tapia, Eric Olson, Lydia Neilsen, and many friends at Localizing California Waters, learning, sharing, connecting, and celebrating our exciting work in water resilience.

The removal of the four dams in the Klamath Basin was deeply inspiring, restoring natural river flows and allowing salmon to access over 400 miles of habitat once blocked. It also rKlamath Indian Reservationd to the Klamath TrSmart Yards Educationt Yards Education, we believe and act on lawn removal- every yard is part of a watershed. 🌎
When it rains, water from our lawns flows into local creeks and rivers, carrying fertilizers and sediments. By replacing lawns with native plants, we slow runoff, filter water naturally, and create habitat for pollinators and birds.

✨ Restore. Reconnect. Reduce. Reuse. 💚🌎💙💦

09/18/2025

💧🌱 Ready to make your home more sustainable?
Join Smart Yards for a two-part Laundry-to-Landscape Workshop and discover how to reuse your laundry water for outdoor irrigation!

✨ What you’ll learn:
✔️ How to design & install a complete, code-compliant graywater system
✔️ Step-by-step guidance for sustainable irrigation
✔️ Hands-on experience you can apply right at home

📅 Workshop Dates:
• Part 1: Sept 27, 10 AM – 12 PM
• Part 2: Oct 25, 10 AM – 2:30 PM

🌍 Save water, nourish your landscape, and take a big step toward sustainability.

👉 Spots are limited—don’t miss out! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf9g4CnuOZ1BqUxv7cDNJQNsI2DeXA5gGt08Ba9YSfv-JsGZA/viewform

This exciting workshop is offered free of charge thanks to the generous support of our sponsors and partners: Valley Water, A Slice of New York, Human Agenda, Smart Yards Coop, Capitol Wholesale Nursery, Oasis Home Design, The Forge Garden, Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, and Lopez Remodeling and Construction.

04/10/2025

Want to get the addresses? Still time to sign up for this inspiring Growing Natives Garden Tour

04/09/2025

Yay- this will indeed be an Earth Day action and fun celebration of our beautiful planet 🌏!

Earth Day Plans? Learn to ReUse Water and Nourish your garden!
Register for Smart Yards Education's Annual, "Earth Day Action" event on 4/19
✨🌍 Community 💞 Family Friendly 💦Education🎵Drum Circle 🌿Fun!✨
Please register to attend.

02/28/2025

02/11/2025

Register and join us for the annual Santa Clara Valley Water District Landscape Summit.

Thursday, February 27, 8:30am-12pm. Lunch will be provided.

Learn about the future of urban landscapes by looking to the recent past of our agricultural heritage. Three dynamic speakers address:

Regenerative Agriculture Research Provides Solutions for Urban Landscapes
How Urban Landscapes Could Lead Water Conservation Policy
Practical Ways Urban Landscapes Mimic Natural Ecosystems through Naturalistic Planting Design
The summit is free, but advance registration is required. Register below.

Join us IN PERSON Thursday, February 27, 2025 for the annual Santa Clara Valley Water District Landscape Summit: 22nd Century Landscapes.

02/05/2025

Volunteer and Join us for the Growing Natives Garden Tour 2025! This free annual event, which we’re excited to sponsor, showcases the beauty of California native plants across vibrant South Bay gardens on April 12-13.

Love native plants? Volunteer with the GNGT 2025 committee to connect with fellow gardeners, share your knowledge, and enjoy stunning landscapes.

Sign up or learn more at gngt.org, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram . See you there!


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11/18/2024

We made history with our first Spanish language Permaculture Cómo plantar agua: Permacultura para el buen vivir in San Jose! Celebrated a significant milestone at a festive graduation event, capping off four months of consecutive Saturdays that produced four exemplary projects and a unified committee and student group dedicated to learning about the holistic methods of permaculture. Thanks to Valley Water’s partnership and sponsors: Smart Yards Gardening and Design Human Agenda, Capitol Wholesale Nursery, A Slice of New York, OASIS HOME, La Mesa Verde - Sacred Heart Community Service,