Kim Rhoads

Ya Charles, all the natives around here grow in balls and cubes. You never have to water them and they never grow past the 3′ dia. ball or cube. They even flower in colors that contrast well with the building they are planted next to. I love natives. They’re truely the answer to all your sustainable dreams. You just need more experience, buddy.

We are being asked more and more to do less and less irrigation on our projects here in and around Seattle. One might think, “so what, it is always raining in Seattle.” This is not quite true. We have had a very dry summer here but we are only about an inch below average for the year. Many native and non native plants are suffering, and will not…[Read more]

Hi folks, it’s me on my lounge in Cairo, but active now in Abu Dhabi.
This is the place to try all this xerophytic plants and other material.
Whenever I come into a new arid area I try to studdy the the vegetation off the beaten tracks. Potential natural vegetation is the best indicator to meet climat and geology. We only (I guess that is the…[Read more]

Hello- I’m new to the group! Currently our LA firm has been dealing with the recent water restrictions- How do we (as Landscape Architects) get the word out that turf is no longer the San Diego landscape? We are in our 3rd consecutive year of drought and something has to change.

To all:
check out my new discussion group: townscapes, villagescapes

Does anyone here have experience with Leit solar controllers? Any issues with long wire runs, durability, etc?

Thanks in advance

Hey Jason, looks like the department has decided to ask you to lecture this coming Fall. I know it seems like it has taken forever, and I apologize but we have been very busy restructuring our program and interviewing potential department heads. The good news is that they still want you to come and lecture and the program is doing great. I also…[Read more]

Thanks Jason. Will have to get hold of his new book as well.

Has anyone used epiphytes on green walls, and if so what success rate did you have. How did you attach them to the walls, simply on a wire trellis structure or did you use something more intricate – any info would be great!

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

good to find cal poly pomona here

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]

Hi all,

I’m just glad to see people that I know here.
Hope everyone’s doing well.

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 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.