Insects' biological clock can signal "die time"

View at YouTube.

Enjoy the flowers, sitting area, and waterfalls.

We can build that for you!

Each quarter-mile median will cost $2,000 to $5,500 annually depending on the location and greenery. In exchange, two signs containing a donor's name will be placed in medians publicizing the contribution.

The city of Clovis, CA is trying to get community members to adopt medians and defray city costs. The city's landscape maintenance program has been hit hard by budget woes. Three years ago, the city had 18 workers to take care of 180 acres of parks and medians. Today, the city has eight people covering 207 acres, said Luke Serpa, Clovis assistant public utilities director.

With the worsening economy, funds have been slashed by more than $8 million over the past two years. City medians, for the past two years, have been manicured monthly by city workers, but now can only be maintained once a year after the latest cuts. The city needs at least $108,000 a year for median maintenance, Luke Serpa said.

In some parts of Clovis, property owners pay the cost of parks and median maintenance; but in other areas, the city’s general fund pays for their upkeep. The city’s landscape staff focuses on areas where residents pay for the services.

Under the new program, businesses, service clubs, families and individuals can underwrite the costs for median landscaping.

The money will pay for city workers or landscape contractors to maintain the medians. City officials want to start the program this summer.

Source: fresnobee.com and Landscape Online

20 Landscape Design Tips

Landscape and Garden Design Tips

Ideas for Landscaping Your Yard

Write down your ideas and then call the professionals at Quality Landscape and Desgin to make your dreams into reality: Contact Us!

What could be more pleasant than sitting on your patio in the morning, sipping a hot beverage, reading a paper, and hearing the chirping of birds around you. Then to look up and see them feeding brings a feeling of bucolic bliss.

Would it surpise you to know that you are not at the mercy of chance in your quest to attract birds?

You can actually make some landscape choices that will promote their presence.

Tell your designer that this is your desire and follow some of the advice of John Staples in planning your project.

Ten Landscape Design Tips to Attract Birds

by John Staples
Online Degrees Columnist

"Behind every successful bird garden is a good landscape design. As the following tips reveal, there's a great difference between sowing the common lawn and establishing a bird-friendly garden. Here are ten pointers for attracting birds:"

I always felt bad as a young person, whenever I saw trees being pruned.

I did not have a handle either on the biblical admonitions or scientific realities of how pruning promotes growth.

Once I did understand that, I was equally crippled by the fact that I did not know how to prune.

I was glad to find a simple article on the subject online.

This is from About.com:

"The main purpose of this FAQ series is to answer questions about pruning trees, but along the way I also treat a few other, basic issues regarding trees. For instance, many homeowners seek recommendations for trees that would have the greatest impact on a landscape design:"

How to Prune Trees

• National Programs
  • General Funding Web sites
  • National Green Building Funding Opportunities

From the EPA:

Granted there are differences in climate and topography, but these are some very interesting articles from a prolific landscape blogger down under.

Glasshouse Gardening

The Beautiful Worm Farm

Water by Tim Durrant

Their Advice and Inspiration blog is worth a bookmark.

Daily Garden: 051 - In the Gutter
July 1, 2009 at 7:55 am · Filed under Daily Garden, Kitchen Gardening, Materials 

"Gutters! Perfect for a small area, or a warm wall. Grow Vegetables or perhaps some pretty dangle-y flowers (can you imagine nasturtiums?)"

There is no end to the creativity of people who love their outdoor spaces and seek to design a place of refuge and refreshment.

The New York Botanical Garden’s 

Seasonal Walk:

Excerpt: In 2008, The New York Botanical Garden invited two international garden design superstars, Piet Oudolf of Hummelo, NL and Jacqueline van der Kloet of Weesp, NL, to create a custom four-season garden installation to delight New Yorkers throughout the year of 2009. Both designers are known for sophisticated plant mixes, an artist’s eye for form and color, and complex naturalized plantings that evolve over the seasons.

Of this exhibity, the Christian Science Monitor's Sally Fergusson writes, "The designers’ highly naturalistic concept, sophisticated plant mixes and artistic interplay of form and color, are causing real excitement at the Garden, where many are referring to the design as “pure genius.” Read More at "Watch a Landscape Develop Before Your Eyes."

What an exciting concept and a seedbed for creative thinking.

I think the true gardener is a lover of his flowers, not a critic of them. I think the true gardener is the reverent servant of Nature, not her truculent, wife-beating master. I think the true gardener, the older he grows, should more and more develop a humble, grateful and uncertain spirit. ~Reginald Farrer, In a Yorkshire Garden, 1909

Garden writing is often very tame, a real waste when you think how opinionated, inquisitive, irreverent and lascivious gardeners themselves tend to be. Nobody talks much about the muscular limbs, dark, swollen buds, strip-tease trees and unholy beauty that have made us all slaves of the Goddess Flora. ~Ketzel Levine's talkingplants.com

Last night, there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden.... It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebooks

Thank you, http://www.quotegarden.com/gardens.html

Gardens are a form of autobiography. ~Sydney Eddison, Horticulture magazine, August/September 1993

I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mosses from and Old Manse

In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful. ~Abram L. Urban

Your garden is a place of refuge for you. It is a place of inspiration and soul refreshment. How you design it and care for it is a factor in your spiritual, emotional, and even physical health.

As the landscape of your life nutures your soul, so does the landscape of your hope.

Plan carefully with your designer. Know yourself, your needs, and what it is you wish to accomplish.

In this place of growth, you will find space for your life to grow as well.

According to its web site, "Dave's Garden is an informational website where a large, international community of gardeners can learn from each other and find resources offered by the gardening industry."'

One of the really nice features of Dave's page are the pictures that users send in of their landscaping ideas.

Check them out HERE.

As they give you ideas, contact us and we can design what you desire:

559-297-8773

HGTV has brought together some of the best gardening experts to share their insider tips on how to avoid common landscaping disasters and what to do to fix them if it does happen.

Read them here.

# 1 is : 1. Not Having a Plan

"Don't start a landscaping project without a plan. Decide on a specific theme or look and then draw it out on paper. Figure out where you want to put your plants and shrubs in relation to the shape and style of your house. Examine ways to bring the inside out so that when you are finished, you have a nice, harmonious design. Don't forget to factor in your budget, and when you hit the nursery, stick to it. If you follow the plan, you (and your landscape) will reap the rewards."

Cary, North Carolina is serious about water conservation. If their web site is any indication, they put commitment where there rhetoric is:

READ MORE

According to, Roboreel, "The most natural boundary you can have in your yard is a thicket or hedge comprised solely of shrubs or trees with texture lined up in a row. This natural fence can filter out noise, deflect wind, add privacy, and provide habitat for small birds and other creatures. "

The rest of the article can be found at Grow Natural Fences.

Natural things, given the time and energy required, always produce healthier and more enduring features in our landscape.

When pressed for time, consult your landscape designer about creating spaces that lend themselves toward low-maintencance natural growth.

The right landscape designer can work miracles and give you the best of both worlds.

According to, Roboreel, "The most natural boundary you can have in your yard is a thicket or hedge comprised solely of shrubs or trees with texture lined up in a row. This natural fence can filter out noise, deflect wind, add privacy, and provide habitat for small birds and other creatures. "

The rest of the article can be found at Grow Natural Fences.

Natural things, given the time and energy required, always produce healthier and more enduring features in our landscape.

When pressed for time, consult your landscape designer about creating spaces that lend themselves toward low-maintencance natural growth.

The right landscape designer can work miracles and give you the best of both worlds.

This material is from www.epa.gov/Greenacres :

Benefits

Landscaping with native plants improves the environment. Native plants are hardy because they have adapted to the local conditions. Once established, native plants do not need pesticides, fertilizers, or watering. Not only is this good for the environment, it saves time and money. A native landscape does not need to be mowed like a conventional lawn. This reduces the demand for non-renewable resources and improves the water and air quality. The periodic burning (or mowing when burning is not practical) required for maintenance of a prairie landscape mimics the natural prairie cycle and is much better for the environment. Landscaping with native wildflowers and grasses helps return the area to a healthy ecosystem. Diverse varieties of birds, butterflies and animals, are attracted to the native plants, thus enhancing the biodiversity of the area. The beauty of native wildflowers and grasses creates a sense of place, both at home and work. The native plants increase our connection to nature, help educate our neighbors, and provide a beautiful, peaceful place to relax.

Reduced Use of Pesticides
Since native plants have adapted to local conditions, they are more resistant to pest problems. Sometimes individuals use non-persistent pesticides, which break down into harmless components, before sowing native plant seeds to minimize competition from the weeds. Once the native plants are established, pesticides are seldom needed.

Improved Air Quality
Native landscaping practices can help improve air quality on a local regional and global level. Locally, smog (ground level ozone) and air toxics can be drastically reduced by the virtual elimination of the need for lawn maintenance equipment (lawn mowers, weed edgers, leaf blowers, etc.) which is fueled by gasoline, electricity or batteries. All of these fuel types are associated with the emissions of the following air pollutants: carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), nitrous oxides (NO_x), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and air toxics such as benzene. Gasoline lawn and garden equipment, on average, produces 5% of ozone-forming VOCs in areas with smog problems. This equipment also emits toxics and particulates.

Regionally, the NO_x and SO₂ released from lawn maintenance equipment react with water in the atmosphere to form acid rain.

Globally, native landscaping practices help to combat global warming in two ways. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is a major greenhouse gas and by reducing the use of lawn maintenance equipment, the associated CO₂emissions are also reduced. Native plants help to reduce the amount of CO₂in the atmosphere by taking in CO₂and storing the carbon in the body of the plants, roots and soil. Native plants work much better than traditional mowed grass as a carbon sink due to their extensive root systems and increased ability to retain and store water.

Improved Water Quality
In conventional landscaping, pesticides are often wrongly applied at times when target insects are not vulnerable. Overuse and inappropriate use often kill beneficial insects and other wildlife. Less than 10% of all insects are harmful to plants. Pesticides have the potential to cause serious human health problems when not handled properly or applied according to the label directions. By eliminating or minimizing the use of pesticides and fertilizers, these pollutants will not run-off into streams, lake, and bays. This improves the quality of the water and the aquatic life in it. In healthy water systems. natural controls, such as fish, frogs, and snails will help keep insect populations under control and reduce algae buildup.

Natural Landscaping Publications

www.epa.gov/greenacres/  (800) 621-8431

Great video on creating a place outside that nurtures your soul:

Watch

See our galleries at:

A very helpful resource.

Lifestyle Benefits of Green Spaces

From Project Evergreen

Download the Lifestyle Benefits Fact Sheet

The paper elaborates on the following:  

• Privacy and tranquility. 
• Lower crime and enhanced self esteem. 
• Stress reduction.
• Green space is beneficial to children. 
• Girls & greenery. 
• Health benefits. 
• Good landscaping increases community appeal. 
• Green spaces create communities. 
• Better atmosphere for learning. 
• Health benefits in children. 
• Safer neighborhoods. 
• Mood enhancer. 
• Road rage reduction. 
• Social communities strengthened. 
• Reduced recovery time. 

Project Greenspace is a non-profit with a mission "...to preserve and enhance green space in our communities for today and future generations.” On their site they post:

Urban gardens go up the wall

From Landscape Architecture - the Magazine of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Gothic Retreat
A romantic backyard pavilion is large enough to entertain a crowd, yet cozy enough for private contemplation.

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT GARNERS INTERNATIONAL AWARD 
World-renowned Ian McHarg recognized for scientific achievement in city planning. 
http://www.asla.org/nonmembers/press011900.htm

AMERICA NEEDS MORE LIVABLE COMMUNITIES 
National organizations join together to advocate federal action. 
http://www.asla.org/nonmembers/press120999.htm

EPA HEAD PRAISES CONTRIBUTION OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS 
Browner calls for passing of Better America Bonds initiative.
http://www.asla.org/nonmembers/press092499.htm

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 
What it's like. 
http://www.womenswire.com/livinglarge/job/landarchit/what.html

You can actually add value to your home by doing some basic landscaping.

The Old Farmer's Almanac is one of the best resources on the planet for gardening information (and other information as well). Their Outdoor Planting Table for 2009 is a must-have and it is freely available to those who register freely on their site.

From the Integrated Waste Management Board here in California:

Introduction to Landscape Waste Prevention

"The guide focused on reducing yard waste—how to prevent it and what to do with it. Ideas and activities called xeriscaping, grasscycling, mulching, and composting will be discussed. Also, the practice of using materials and products made from recycled resources will be described and we will show how this practice can benefit you while helping the environment. Finally, a listing of informational resources is provided so that you can continue building your waste reduction knowledge, saving money, and assisting your community."

What is compost tea and why use it?

Establishing a Waste Efficient Landscape

Landscape Design and Plant Selection
Soil Preparation and Irrigation Systems
Water Efficient Landscaping Links

A landscape can be designed from the beginning to reduce the amount of resources needed to maintain it and the amount of waste it produces. Each region of California has different resource conditions, such as available water, soil type, temperature ranges, and lighting. By designing a landscape in an appropriate manner, selecting compatible plants, and installing efficient irrigation systems, a balance can be achieved that fits both the aesthetic needs of the landowner or client, and the resource availability of the region.

Many times a landscape is "inherited"--it is already established and you are simply charged with maintaining it. A transition to a more resource-efficient landscape may be a possibility. However, long-term resource efficiency improves when you plan and prepare ahead of time.

The Link Exchange is a wealth of information and referral on the subject of native plants in California.

CNPLX is a resource for people interested in gardening with California native plants. This website will help you select locally appropriate native plants for any location in the state, and find out who sells them.
For each plant that grows wild in California, there is a plant information page that shows

U.C. Davis Department of Agriculture offers some excellent advice for designing landscapes that are fire safe.

Read Landscape for Fire Protection

It is costly to live safely in the fire-prone hills of California. Control of chaparral is a major expense, and a hillside, whether landscaped with native shrubs or other ornamentals, requires maintenance that includes water, since few ornamental plants can survive on our normal rainfall. However, you can choose plants with drought-tolerant characteristics and those that require minimum maintenance.

More

CalPhotos 

CalPhotos is a collection of 207,779 photos of plants, animals, fossils, people, and landscapes from around the world. A variety of organizations and individuals have contributed photographs to CalPhotos. Please be aware that these various contributors maintain copyright and follow the usage guidelines provided with each image.

To look for photos, choose one or more of the options below and click on Search. The total number of photos for each category is shown in parentheses following the category name.
You can also use the custom query form for advanced queries.

Go here for the latest weather updates.

The PLANTS Database provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories.


Plant of the Week

American black elderberrySambucus nigra L. ssp. canadensis (L.) R. Bolli
Click on the ph