Mark Simmons

Semiarundaria fastuosum is a good screen variety. Dense and upright.

Hi All,
A little Bio. for your consumption. I started irrigation design in 2001 in Arizona. Worked with a L. A. in Arizona, who exclusively went after IRRIG. projects. He did very well, However I wanted to grow to other areas and moved on. Jump to the present, In the last office I worked in (March 2009), My billable hours for Irrigation Design was…[Read more]

Two years after clearing the invasives in my part of the creekbed in my backyard – you know, plants like Arundo and Tamarisk (how did that get there?) and Washingtonia palms (we all know how that got there) – the birds were kind enough to plant 3 Quercus agrifolia and a Toyon that is now about 12′ high. None of these are requiring additional water…[Read more]

Christmas berry!? They can make a landscape designer a hero!

Hello fellow irrigation designers! I am taking the Certified Landscape irrigation Auditor Exam in the beginning of October and was wondering if anyone has the 2007 manual? Let me know if you would be willing to part with it! Thanks 🙂

Hi all.. I just joined the group..I use eaglecad for irrigation projects for 7years. It also runs in Autocad. You may test yourself by freeware version if you want…
Greeting from İstanbul…

Rob-

We use Land FX; which it sounds like the same setup as Raincad. It is extremely simple to pick up on and their support is like no other. We have been using it for almost 5 years now without one complaint. I would give them a call and talk to their rep if you are interested.

I’m a residential Landscape Designer in San Diego’s East County. Has anyone mentioned Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano? They have a nice newsletter as well you can subscribe to.
I like to incorporate garden-friendly california natives in my designs.

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

Thanks in advance

This past weekend I took Richard Scott’s Sketching on Location Workshop in Central Park. Great class. Twelve “students” from high school junior to college students to middle-aged designers. Richard is a great teacher, clear, supportive and scary good at drawing and water color. I plan on continuing freehand sketching and water coloring (?) for fun…[Read more]

FYI – Andrea Cochran is doing a free wine and cheese book signing event at Arch tonight between 5:30 and 8pm. Arch is at 99 Missouri at the corner of 17th St.

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?

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.