Paradise in Parking Lots

Depave is working to tear up that asphalt and make green spaces bloom again. “From parking lots to paradise.” That’s one of the slogans of Depave, a nonprofit group determined to reverse Joni Mitchell’s grim vision of an asphalt-covered America.

For nearly four years, the Portland, Oregon-based group has been literally tearing up superfluous parking lots and other underused expanses of asphalt and turning them into productive greenspace.

In the summer of 2008, for their first project, Depave’s organizers recruited 147 volunteers to rip up a roughly 2,500-square-foot parking lot next to the Waypost Café in north Portland, eventually turning it into the Fargo Forest Garden. Since then, the group has pulled up unnecessary patches of asphalt all over the city. In its 20 projects so far, Depave has worked with schools, businesses, and even private residents to create new gardens, parks, landscaped yards, and at least one pumpkin patch.  

To Read the whole article: Depave: Returning Parking Lots To Paradise

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I Dig Crystals

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Labeling with Seed Paper

Paper will bloom when planted!

I Dig Crystals now prints on Lotka Seed Paper! This is a handmade paper created from the inner bark of the Daphne bush, which grows high in the mountains of Nepal. After harvesting, the bark regenerates, so no forestation is destroyed. The cane like stick, once its bark is removed, is dried and used to heat the villager's homes, to provide fuel for cooking and also for the production of the paper. All of the water used in the paper production is reclaimed and reused. The bark is beaten by hand and boiled to break it down to a pulp and poured into screens to form the sheets. The sheets are dried in the sun, making the whole process environmentally sound and acid free. Each sheet is also embedded with tiny seeds including 15 annual species which tolerate partial shade, need 4 hours/day of direct sunlight and grow to about 3 feet (seeds include: red corn poppy, corn poppy, spurred snapdragon, catchfly, english daisy, showy evening primrose, gold yarrow, roman chamomile, tussock bellflower, foxglove, fringed sagewort, white yarrow, red yarrow, monkeyflower and creeping thyme.

What I love is that I can use this paper just like regular printing paper, through my inkjet printer! Each I Dig Crystals creation includes a seeded label with the vital information - Title, Chakra, Materials - and once committed to memory, the label can be recycled, composted or even planted!

I Dig Crystals

idigcrystals@gmail.com

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Eco-Friendly Crystals

Crystals are natural and eco-friendly:

http://www.alternativeconsumer.com/2008/12/28/handmade-jewelry-i-dig-crystals/

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