Matt McMillan

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]

Great idea for a group!

I’m glad to see someone else interested in SSI! I’m working on a children’s garden project for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. We’re designing the project to the preliminary draft SSI credits in hopes to create a sustainable landscape project, test the credits and criteria and eventually hopefully become a pilot project.

Hey Charles, Its good to have you in the group. How do you feel about this narrowing of role? Do you think that if we still had more of a role in related fields that there would be more work currently available for landscape architects? If you want you could start a discussion about it. I think it would be interesting to see what we could learn…[Read more]

What was the name of the site where you can sell your entourage images that you have created?

I’ve been working in this profession for 37 years and have found that as time goes by, landscape architect’s role gets more and more narrow. 30 years ago, I was doing natural resource analysis, coastal management programs and land use plans. Now to do much of anything with natural resources we have to hire biologists, geologists, soils engineers,…[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.

hi, i’d been trying to blend hand drawing with computer, and i think i got a really good renderings. after i apply style in sketchup, i draw the vegetation by hands and put it on top in photoshop. when i Apply color in photoshop, i use the wet brushes. So check my renderings and if you like I can give you more tips.

I like your stuff Bob, I would like to see it a bit bigger.

Aaron-

Are you talking about getting pics up onto this group discussion or onto your folio? I always use the ‘simple uploader’ when uploading to my folio, I find it less glitchey as you mentioned. For posting here, just hit the camera button above and make sure you image is in an acceptable format (jpeg) and 72-150 dpi and less than about 500…[Read more]

I’m still getting an X when I upload. I’m finding this site very glitchy. Slow uploads, freezing up, inability to close down, etc.. Anyone else having these issues? How can I get my darn pics up??

sucess… thank you Nick, we may be able to go a little wider but these settings are much better… now we can post some images and give some better feedback.

Here is my test to see if the settings sugested will work, 400 pix wide and 100dpi

I think if you size the width of your images to about 400pixels wide that should fit just right, also you (everyone) should do everyone else a favor and keep your dpi under 150…more like 100 or even 72 to avoid sluggish scrolling.

Again why do some of the images get stretched out while others look fine… I am guessing that there is some kind of ideal image size for the group walls, does anybody know what that size limit is so that we can actually see what people are posting? Vladimir’s images are all stretched out while right below his Nick’s look perfect, is any one else…[Read more]

I thought I would contribute some different digital and hand techniques I’ve experimented with over the last few semesters as an undergrad. Before I returned to school for Landscape Architecture I enrolled in a 12 month cad drafting course and read all the landscape graphics books I could get my hands on, which still seem sort of…[Read more]

Does anybody have any suggestions or examples for rendering a master plan in a desert environment? I’m trying to finish up my capstone project so I can graduate and I’ve run into a little snag. I go to school in the south so drawing a rocky barren landscape with clusters of cactus is a first.

what is the best size of image so that it does not distort, I noticed that many of the images, including mine are being stretched into a tall and “squeezed” format, are these do to i9mage size or my computer settings?