I'll be teaching OH 170 Plant Materials: Trees and Shrubs again Fall Semester at Cuyamaca College. Class starts August 21. We will be having some of our class meetings at Balboa Park, the best place in San Diego to learn about woody plants! Please email me with any questions. We hope to see you there! OH-170-Promo-FlyerDownload
A couple weeks ago Botanicon led a tour of the Water Conservation Garden in El Cajon, CA. Our focus was educating HOA Board members and Property Managers on low maintenance, water wise plant choices for their communities. And who doesn't like to get outside and look at beautiful plant specimens? Thank you to all who attended and sponsored our event. 5-Takeaways-from-HOA-Garden-TourDownload Weeping bottlebrush - Drought tolerant tree with [...]
Diagnosing Landscape Plant Problems All landscapes have plant health issues which arise. A question I am often asked is what is going on and how do I fix it? Some landscape plant health concerns are easy to identify, an aphid infestation for example. Often times issues have more than one causal agent. Abiotic factors many times will lead to biotic issues. Right plant, right place is applicable here. [...]
A Great Small Tree Selection for Spring Blooms Tired of seeing the same trees being used over and over again? Tree species diversity is important to the urban forest, so let's mix up the planting palette. Chionanthus retusus, or Chinese fringe tree, is blooming here in San Diego, and what a show! I took these photos about a week ago when I hit the brakes at the [...]
Garden-TourDownload RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/garden-tour-horticulture-for-hoa-sites-tickets-61601065445
University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources is hosting the IPM Training for Landscape Professionals on May 23, 2019. Location is theScottish Rite Event Center 1895 Camino del Rio South, San Diego, CA 92108. Topics of interest for pest management in the landscape setting and CEU's available. I'll be speaking on the topic of Diagnosing Landscape Plant Problems, and highlighting the steps and resources useful for an accurate [...]
People love lush landscapes and instant gratification. Clients of landscaped sites want that full garden look from day one. Property owners, contractors and landscape architects achieve this by densely populating the ground with plant material, regardless of species size at maturity. It sells and leases properties, plain and simple. But what are the long term costs? And is this sustainable? When asked to review site planting plans or [...]
When conducting landscape inspections, I commonly see all of these offending practices in regards to trees....poor quality nursery stock, planted too deeply, soil is amended instead of proper species selection, holes dug too large, tree "snorkels" installed, staked improperly and left on too long, hardscape and infrastructure interference, root barriers, the list goes on. None of this has a basis in horticulture or promotes healthy tree establishment and [...]
Video Trees Provide Amazing Benefits by Davey Tree Thank Goodness for Trees! Arbor Day is April 26, 2019 here in San Diego and across the nation. So look up and around at the valuable assets in your area. Communities would not be the same beautiful, livable spaces without trees. Statistics on The Benefits of Trees by The Arbor Day Foundation The net cooling effect of a young, [...]
5 Advantages to Writing Maintenance Specs Specific to your Site Specifications for landscape maintenance are instructions to the contractors performing the work - mowing, pruning, leaf clean up, irrigation management, pest monitoring and control, etc. They are written by professionals knowledgeable in horticulture, plant care, irrigation and landscape management. With a landscape inventory in place, maintenance specs specific to your site, and input from owners and managers, we [...]
