Barry Thau

Here are some other resources. las pilitas nursery. 2 locations. North San Diego county (Escondido) & San Luis Obispo. http://www.laspilitas.com. website is deep with info. Another is “California Native Plants for the Garden” by Carol Bornstein, Bart O’brien & David Fross. Cachuma Press. David Fross was my Cal Natives Professor at Cal Poly, SLO. Lots of…[Read more]

Agree with Ken and Blake. There’s also some nurseries that specialize in natives. Yerba Buena Nursery south of SF has a demonstration garden with labeled plants and the owners are VERY knowledgeable. Also, North Coast Nursery and Cal Flora in Sonoma County. Also, it’s good to be mindful of the fact that California has many totaly different native…[Read more]

Katrina, to clarify, UCBG and Tilden are in Berkeley and Merritt College is in Oakland.

The South Lake Tahoe and North Lake Tahoe Demonstration Gardens show a plethora of California Native plants used in the high Sierra. These gardens give great examples of California Native plants at diffrent stages of development.

Agree with Blake — the Merritt program is great. I also volunteered at Tilden’s native nursery on Thursday mornings — propagating, etc. It was a great way to learn about natives. U.C. Botanical Garden and the Tilden Park (native) Botanical Garden are both stunning places to check out CA natives in a park setting.

you may also want to check out the horticulture program at Merritt College for i.d. classes. http://www.merrritt.edu

Latest TLDBlog post is on medicinal herbs in the healing garden: http://tldb.blogspot.com.

Rob,

There are a lot of good softwares out there, selection really depends on your situation and needs. I would “demo’ as many softwares as possible to see which one fits your office best.

For Autocad, Raincad for Autocad works well. It runs in Autocad as a toolbar, similar to Express Tools. You still have the full function of autocad while…[Read more]

I know several who have taken his Color Mastery workshop and were very favorably impressed.

Has anyone taken Richard Scott’s Sketching on location workshop?

I was able to find some irrigation training and I am more confident now. However, I am looking to purchase irrigation design software. What are the best choices out there? Land F/X? IrriCalc? RainCAD? Others?

I noted Rico listed Ace Torre as an influence. I recently completed an extensive article profiling Torre for next month’s (May 09) issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine. It’s an in-depth look at his design drawing philosophies and techniques, with step by step photos of Torre in the studio creating one of his famous “tilt-up” aerial drawings.

Catinca, her name is Sheila Taft, and she’s probably in the Seattle, Washington area. Maybe worth looking her up?

Catinca, here’s an interview with a horticultural therapist about therapeutic gardens with some mention of the importance of scent. Alas, no text and so no reference of the evidence she refers to, but if you can catch her name, maybe you can contact her. And please, share what you learn with us!…[Read more]

Hi folks,
A sculptor/psychologist friend has formed a non profit that aims to assist mentally and physically wounded veterans reintegrate into society through counciling and education. That’s her empathetic altruistic side at work; her creative artistic side wants to collaborate on the creation of a healing place that incorporates art and…[Read more]

hello, nice to join the group! I’m doing a research about the synergic perception of landscape and I have some problems finding resources about the psychological effects of plant perfumes, and in general about the olfactive perception. Can anybody help me? Greetings, Catinca

I want to sharpen my irrigation skills and train one of my coworkers. Are there any free online tutorials with practice problems that we could download? Any help would be much appreciated.

Hello Everyone! I’m going to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens for a conference on Horticultural Therapy in April and it will be the first hort. therapy conference that I’ve ever been to. I was wondering if anyone in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee…knows of any other seminars or meetings that are going on in our area and what other organizations or…[Read more]

Oona,
LEED has been growing extremely fast these couple of years, at least in California and the bay area. Clients, public and private, are becoming much more aware of LEED and are requesting that we follow the requirements whether they are or are not applying for accreditation on a project. About half of our office of 50 is now LEED certified.…[Read more]

Hi Doug,

Check out the California Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance, at http://www.owue.water.ca.gov/. It is in the process of final revision and is set to go into effect January 2010. It outlines the services and responsibilities of CIDs.

The CID process is pretty involved with classes and tests and can take awhile to get certified. If…[Read more]