Good Life Garden
Good Life Garden Video
The courtyard of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, home to the UC Davis Good Life Garden since 2008, quickly became a popular venue for weddings and high-profile university events thanks to the gorgeous, well-maintained, ever-changing edible landscape.
This garden is utilized by students, faculty, staff, volunteers and more!
For example:
Students in our Learning by Leading program design, plant and maintain all of the raised beds as well as harvest the vegetables and donate them to Aggie House — an organization founded and run by students that works to support students experiencing housing and/or food insecurity.
We collaborated with the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center to re-envision a portion of the landscape as a kitchen garden complete with pollinator-friendly demonstration plantings, low-water use irrigation concepts, educational signage, and a beehive!
In collaboration with Good Life Garden campus partners (the Viticulture and Enology and Food Science and Technology departments and RMI Institute for Wine and Food Science) we worked to secure funds to enable the purchase of outdoor tables and seating for the Peter and Merle Mullen courtyard at RMI in support of a broader effort to encourage people spending time outside in order to reap the inherent health and well-being benefits associated with doing so.In addition, we have volunteers who help to steward this garden (similar to the volunteer teams that work elsewhere in the Arboretum). These volunteer gardeners have the opportunity to work with our horticultural staff, develop new edible landscaping skills, and meet people who share their interests.
Come by and visit our ornamental edible demonstration gardens!
