3Qs with Alma Hecht of Second Nature Design

An urban garden cracks the concrete shell and gives the earth space to breath. “We’ve created so much hard space,” Alma Hecht, a sustainable landscape designer and owner of Second Nature Design, said. “Urban gardens are opportunities to open up the earth and allow it to rejuvenate.” In the last two years, Alma’s San Francisco-based firm has won a half-dozen awards in recognition of her innovative and socially responsible approach to creating pockets of green for lucky urbanites.

Alma’s philosophy is in part inspired by Cradle To Cradle, a 2002 book manifesto extolling an ecological approach to design and industry that emphasizes products that continue generating value throughout their lifespan — and beyond.

A self-described “dumpster diver,” Alma sees the beauty in the unusual and reuses materials and objects in a myriad of unexpected ways, like remaking used steel into “laundry grove” for carbon-free clothes drying. She avoids using new materials, even sustainable ones like Trex, a decking material made from recycled wood and plastic. “What happens when the next person moves in and tears it out?” she asks.

In one concrete-covered backyard, she had a mason break up the concrete into the size and shape of stepping stones; in another, she reused concrete to build raised vegetable beds.  A mason she was working with was flabbergasted when she asked him to do this — why not save on labor and put in new blocks? — but when he saw the finished garden, he admitted the aged concrete looked better.

“And it saved me from trips back and forth to the dump and the outdoor store,” he said, “it saved on all that gas.”  He’s such a convert, he said he’d suggest reusing concrete to other clients.

The beauty of Alma’s approach is that she not only recycles and limits the use of new materials — avoiding the associated carbon footprint — but she gives people like that once-doubtful mason more work.  A job turned green, and you know how I feel about those.

1. What was your environmental epiphany?

It happens every day.  But looking back, I remember having a garden on Lumi Island [in Washington’s Puget Sound] in my twenties, picking lettuce and peas while salmon that our friends caught cooked over coals buried in the sand.  Later, when I studied horticulture, I began thinking I want all my gardens to have food in them, even if it’s as simple as a pot of thyme.  Ideally, every garden should have an apple or orange tree.

2. Who or what are you inspired by right now in the green movement?

I’m not purely green per se.  I’m for a balance of all things, so I filter so many different viewpoints into what I do and define my process through that. I’m inspired by Obama, Judith Larner Lowry, the owner of a seed company that sells native and heritage seeds.  I’m inspired by permaculture [an agricultural system that mimics natural ecologies], and Bernard Trainor [the owner of a sustainable landcaping firm based in Monterey Bay, CA]. I heard Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s speech at the 2007 West Coast Green Conference and that was very inspiring. And then Al Gore — you’ve gotta love him although he really pisses me off with all those big houses!

3. What are three ways you actively reduce your carbon footprint and one way you don’t?

I walk and ride public transportation as much as I can.  I shop at local farmer’s markets and buy second hand goods as much as possible.  I don’t like new stuff — except underwear and shoes!  And so, where do I take the black eye?  That’s what I call it.  Well, I just drove fast down to L.A. in my Prius.  I got 43 miles to the gallon but I know I could have gotten 50 [if I’d driven slower].  But who wants to be stuck on Highway 5?