New ‘Mariposa Garden’ to be unveiled in Westside Costa Mesa

Costa Mesa will unveil its new “Mariposa Garden,” the City’s first butterfly garden featuring the first City-funded public art project on Tuesday Jan. 30 at 10 a.m. on a hillside adjacent to Marina View Park located at 1035 W. 19th St.

The City’s Public Works crews planted eight different varieties of drought tolerant plants that are a mixture of naturalized and native plants. The flora is designed to attract a variety of butterflies, including the famous monarch butterfly that migrates 3,000 miles south for the winter from the western United States to the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico.

Mariposa Garden is part of a larger Westside Restoration Project and West 19th Street corridor enhancements for the District 4 and District 5 neighborhoods. The project was launched to enhance neighborhoods, improve pedestrian and bicycle accessibility, repair aging infrastructure, and enhance lighting and safety. 

“The restoration of the Westside is an important goal for the community,” said City Manager Lori Ann Farrell Harrison. “We are undertaking an overall revitalization of Costa Mesa’s Westside, promoting active transportation, providing an enriching environment, and creating more open space. Mariposa Garden will be a beautiful addition to that.”

The revitalization efforts address sidewalk and curb painting maintenance, an increase of visible trash receptacles, installation of artistic bike racks, maintaining the corridors’ light poles, and reducing speeds on 19th Street to make it bike and pedestrian friendly. Additionally, the City is investing in promoting the arts through place-making, murals and utility box art.

The Mariposa Garden will include a City-funded public art project that features four large butterfly sculptures and several smaller butterflies created by renowned artist Marisabel Bazan. The artist titled the sculptures “La Magia de Colleta.”

Bazan is known for her colorful organic artwork and public commissions such as the Dance of the Butterflies commissioned by the Arts and Cultural Affairs Commission of West Hollywood and the Dream Big Collection at Times Square in New York City.

Work is underway to create additional butterfly gardens throughout the City in the coming months and years. Each garden will feature the word butterfly in different languages to embrace the diversity that exists in Costa Mesa.