biancaKOENIG

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

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 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?

Hi there, I Think I am one of the only swiss la’s in this comunity?
I am also looking for a job in Nz ore Australia, so Lauren, if you got something
please tell me…. NZILA seams to be a bit smal

Hello all SloTown alum and current residents/students..Class of ’78. I love this site. See ya ’round.
Chad
Dowell doing good.

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.

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]

Doug,
Yes there is merit. I run a design build firm that does some bid build as well. Some of the irrigation ‘designs’ that come out of some other offices that we bid on don’t follow simple irrigation principles and spec antiquated equipment.
The IA certification (CID) is a good one. I became certified a few years ago. I am always up to date with…[Read more]

Hey everyone. I’d like to get your opinion. Does anyone see any merit in becoming certified in irrigation design? The IA offers courses and testing in irrigation design that we as landscape architects would be eligible to take. While there is a great irrigation knowledge base at my office, I feel like so much has changed over the years that I need…[Read more]

hi everyone, i just sign to this group. I have my own company here in UAE (Ajman) for (planning – designing – production – installation – construction) theme stages, wedding events, artificial rock work, fiberglass casting, mall decors, theme parks etc… check my profile i have lots of sample pictures of what my company has to offer. can anybody…[Read more]

Is anyone marketing “green building” or LEED more heavily these days?

Hey all…LA in Kenya is stil young, we have to keep justifying ourselves more often than not. I recently started working at an engineering firm and i must say its a bit lonely.

Steve,
I just so happen to be installing a RainMaster Oasis, with 15 controllers and a Weather Center II, and will be completing installation of the controls this week. All seems to be going well with installation and configuration.

Let me know if you need any additional information. I can update you when system is up and running.

Regards,
Paul

Hello,
Has anyone spec’d or installed the Rainmaster Weather Center II on-site weather station? It looks like this is a weather station with some commercial qualities. I’m looking to spec. it in a urban community center project.

thanks,

steve