SPRING GARDEN SHOW UPDATE

The south coast plaza was a great success. Many different gardens and what seamed like a gazillion different vendor booths to check out and buy from. Anything and everything from native plants to orchids to gardens and showcased a range of different designs. The show was awesome! The people that had the gardens including myself put a lot of time into constructing the garden. A lot of work but so worth the business marketing opportunity. Below are some pictures of my garden. The concept of the garden was to create a simple/easy to install native garden. I did the show with green interior designer Linsi Brownson (www.brownson-designgroup.com). Violet Lawrence the arborist and Verna Knapp landscape contractor helped a lot with the installation and tare down of the garden. Tree of Life Nursery + Laguna Hills Nursery provided the plant material needed. Kellogg donated the mulch.

CASA EL SALVADOR

This weeks design is a front yard design in Long Beach. As you can see from the before pictures it is just a front yard of lawn and maybe a shrub or two. But as you will notice in the planting plan this front yard is proposed to be native. Using only native plants, gravel and decomposed granite this yard which is currently under construction will become a low water requiring native garden.

The parkway will remain as is however the rest of the front yard will use the following native plants...

• Arctostaphylos 'Refugioensis' - Manzanita
• Ceanothus 'Joyce Coulter' - Ceanothus
• Ceanothus 'Skylark' - Ceanothus
• Iris douglasiana - California Iris
• Penstemon heterophyllus 'Margarita' - Foothill Penstemon

SOLAR PLANT

I was reading the the Go Green Solar blog and was really fascinated by their recent post about a solar plant. Imagine if we took solar panels and shaped them as leaves or other things. Kinda like the cell phone towers that are made to look like plants. You could have one of these in your garden and use it to power your garden lights thus reducing your electricity bill.

"Unlike traditional solar cells which are crystalline based, the organic thin-film solar cell is composed of a flexible plastic substrate. The three companies that allied towards the development of the solar leaf prototype managed to improve the durability of the solar cell by sealing it between a very thin layer of plastic."

APRIL EVENTS

There are many events going on this month and rather than write it all down here I would prefer to direct you to various calenders.

Gardening meetup events calender - click here
Tree Of Life Nursery events calender - click here
Going Green in O.C. meetup events calender - click here
The Road Less Traveled Store events calender - click here
Environmental Nature Center events calender - click here
Rogers Garden events calender - click here

"Those who think that it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it"

ELDEN DWELLINGS

This weeks sustainable landscape design is a really neat rental property in Costa Mesa. Elden Dwellings Yes! apparently renting a green property is possible. There is nothing sustainable looking about the before pictures. In fact one might say that these units need lots of work. But thanks to a team of professionals these units were given a new sustainable life.

These newly renovated 5 unit detached rental homes built in the early 1900's were given a new lease on life in an effort to promote environmental awareness and encourage living a more sustainable lifestyle.

Some sustainable landscape features include:

• Native/drought tolerant plant materials
• Drip irrigation
• Raised planter beds for growing fruits and vegetables
• Compost bins
• Permeable paving materials

I wish I could live in one of these units but just because I can't doesn't mean you can't. I highly recommend that you go tour one of these units to get a look at what a real sustainably designed property looks like. Better yet I suggest you rent one! If you are interested in either viewing or renting then go to the Elden Dwellings website for more info, more pics, info about the designers and leasing agent to contact. www.eldendwellings.com