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Here in the Uk you could ring the local agricultural college or even the Royal Horticultural Society and ask their advice. I assume you have something similar. A lot of the courses have students making a garden area but it always seems to me it starts with a list of about 200 plants’ latin names you learn by heart and this stands you in good stead…[Read more]

Funny, I am looking into MLA program in Copenhagen as well as place to study abroad for a semester while completing graduate credits for a MLA at Penn State. They do have an exchange program as well as a visiting student program. I am not sure whether I will be able to do this with all the MLA requirements here at Penn State… but I will let you…[Read more]

Look at CADdetails.com. A lot of mfrs have their products on there, available for download. SketchUp files are becoming popular as well.

Arrgh! Sore topic with me! Mex fan palms are close to the native, I forget the exact designation for the native palms, BUT – these things grow in OASIS of water, not lining the streets or highways, which are best described as arroyos, rather than OASIS.
I have been thinking of this conceptual conflict recently – do you want to plant native plants,…[Read more]

But Mex fans are native, aren’t they? That might’ve been on the Cali LA test.

Yeah, I’ve never really cared for palms, especially the Mexican Fan Palms. I’d prefer to see California move towards a more appropriate aesthetic for the region.

Actually this might be a boon for the nursery industry as it replaces all those killed palms! Add in a few giant wildfires, and you could have the landscape industry of SoCal back in good shape!

See also “Disaster Capitalism”

Wow! Nutria from the Southeast sprinkled with toasted red palm beetles.. Just in time for Turkey day!

Thank you – I was unaware of this infestation..

Thanks for the great links, here are a few more to add:

http://designblog.reddoorla.com/
http://www.urbansketchers.com/

I often start in ArcGIS but prefer to finish using other tools I find more effective or efficient for presentation stuff.

I have to disagree with your statement that GIS is not a good presentation or design tool. With ArchGIS you are able to heavily manipulate all aspects of a map including colors (specifying the shade of blue for water for instance), text, and layout. If you are so inclined, you can make beautiful, artistic maps for presentations that are far…[Read more]

A human can not (i repeat “can not”) efficiently analyze 45 million cells of topographic data to determine how best to situate a 200 acre resort so as to minimize light pollution, visual impact, noise impact, as well as ecological disturbance in a 10 mile study area in a matter of hours. I don’t care how skilled your hand is. You will be drawing…[Read more]

I have an MLA and work as a landscape planner. I use it extensively and find it an invaluable tool. I find it useful because we use our own data and I often work at a massive scale (my smallest project area is 5000 acres, my largest is 8.4 million). It is an excellent analysis tool but is of very limited use beyond that. You need to be using lots…[Read more]

Its nothing that cannot be done with other methods…especially for those with experience. While it may make some design decisions easier for a novice, a skilled hand can do the same thing in less time and with better accuracy. You can just LOOK at data and dermine suitability. I’ve used GIS, both professionally as well as academically, and found…[Read more]

In Syracuse, we have a few nesting falcons twelve stories above my desk and their main diet consists of the winged rat. It is brilliant to watch. They dive and full speed (the fastest animal in the air, by the way) and slam into pigeons sending a carcass followed by a wash of feathers falling peacefully by my window. The carnage that follows is…[Read more]

Great example and creative use of the application. I also do extensive visual impact work and GIS is one of the best desktop study applications we use. ArcGIS, being the primary platform.

One can never trust infomation on new varieties from anyone! This is because some of these varieties are less than 10 years old they have not even had a chance to be observed as a fully mature tree. Until then one can only speculate on the mature size and shape of the plant. It is a good place to observe new varieties that are beginning to show up…[Read more]