While our company focuses mainly on residential design and installation, we do from time to time branch out on a commercial or specialty project. A recurring problem on one such restoration project, which occurs when working on native plant revegetation is finding the specified plantings. We have been working on an estimate for a landscape restoration of a creek channel in Marin. The plants specified for the revegetation of the creek banks are California natives, which are not grown in the mainstream nursery trade and only grown by native plant specialty nurseries. The problem that restorations provide are two fold- the plants themselves are not commonly grown and not widely available, and the numbers required to revegitate a restoration site (several hundred for a quarter acre of creek bank in this case) are typically not readily available.

An interesting example of this was a native grower who was contacted by a developer for a revegetation project. Frequently there will be a planning requirement that mandates revegetation with plants native to the site on large developments in California that displace existing vegetation. The builder contacted the grower with his list of several hundred native plants that were specifically endemic to the site, with a time table of 6 months for installation. The grower responded with frustration and amusement because none of the plants were available in the trade and had to be propagated and grown from seed or cutting. This process that can take several years depending on the size of plant required.

There was an interesting piece in the San Francisco Chronicle about soil disposal in Atherton. The city council established a fee of $22 per cubic yard to dispose of soil to offset the cost of wear and tear on roads from large trucks hauling soil. After a voracious outcry from residents they removed the fee. For large basement projects the fees could add up to tens of thousands of dollars.

One would assume that this fee was on top of the cost imposed by the disposal service or dump. Here in Marin disposal fees can run $35-50 per yard for soil debris bins delivered to a project site. At the local dumps the fees are less, $15-30 per yard, assuming the material being disposed is clean fill soil. Using Marin’s prices as a guide, the Atherton fees would have amounted to a 50-100% additional cost. An average residential landscaping project can generate anywhere from 10-200 cubic yards of soil material if large retaining walls or terraces are involved that require extensive excavation.

Our project portfolio is newly updated with current featured projects. Each feature includes a project description, design schematics and details on project installation in construction. The regular work examples galleries have also been updated to reflect our most current work.

Featured Projects:
Kent Woodlands: Entrance Gate, large deck around swimming pool, and flagstone entry

Larkspur: Terraced stucco walls and mediterranean plantings

San Rafael: Outdoor kitchen, space reclaiming retaining wall, and bluestone patio

Tiburon: Landscape with new home construction, plantings, large lawn and fencing

Sonoma: New entrance with flagstone approach and multi-tiered deck, newly articulated entertaining spaces and pool remodel

In looking at some other blog pages that link to our blog, it is amazing to see the global reach of the internet and blogs. Two interesting links to note- one came from a site in the UK, Real Oasis, referencing our post about Current Cutting Technology on the peninsula. The other item of interest, a reference to our post on glass mulch from Portugal. I was surprised how easy it was to the read Portuguese posting (as a Spanish speaker it read like misspelled Spanish).

200 Blog posts in just over a year! Thanks to all our readers, next stop 300…

There was an interesting feature in a recent issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine, describing how plants and trees in new developments don’t grow very well. The culprit- the construction process. Typically, when new homes are built, the builder scrapes the site clean of topsoil during cleaning and grading. Even if new soil is added to the site later, it often does not replicate the endemic soil. Often in new developments, especially in our area, the housing isn’t build on the greatest soil to begin with (the California Central Valley, doesn’t have this problem, but that raises a whole slate of other issues).

Add to the soil factor the fact that builders typically don’t do a great job installing shrubs and trees for new houses, and the problem is compounded further. Still sometimes trees do grow well. In one new development where we are currently working, there are some beautiful Sycamore trees that are about 5 years old and 25-30′ tall. This issue underscores the fact of the importance of soil preparation when installing plantings, especially in new developments.

There was an article in the Marin IJ yesterday on the amount of water used by lawns in the summer months. This is going to become more and more of an issue as building continues in California, and water supplies are tight. Alternatives to lawns range from synthetic turf, to alternative lawns, or low water use plantings.

One aspect that struck me was the amount water districts are paying local schools to replace natural turf with synthetic- $15,000 per acre. That is $.35 per square foot, which wouldn’t begin to pay for the sand underneath the new synthetic turf, let alone the cost of all the materials and installation. It is a small step in the right direction though. School fields tend to be difficult and poorly maintained. Those schools with synthetic turf such as Marin Academy, which was one of the first high schools in Marin to install synthetic turf, look pretty realistic aesthetically.

There are a host of new technologies on the market which aim at water conservation. Smarter controllers are one way to improve water use. WeatherTrak Controllers, produced by Hydropoint, a local company out of Petaluma, use innovative weather tracking systems, to monitor and adjust watering. With a subscription service, data is downloaded to the controller and adjustments to the watering schedule are made automatically. These new controllers are the wave of the future, as water districts are starting to clamp down on water use and make mandatory these new technologies.

Controller Image from the WeatherTrak Website

For More:
Past blog posts on- Synthetic Greens & Lawns, Alternative Lawns

Posted by Michael O’Connell at 05:23 PM | Comments (0)

I was out in the field today looking at an institutional project that had heavy usage and a low maintenance budget. In these types of situations it can be difficult to establish a successful installation. For planting projects the design and selection of plants and irrigation system are of critical importance in high traffic areas (parking lots, apartment buildings, public areas, residences with active dogs or children come to mind).

Selection of plants is critical; what we typically call Cast Iron plants. These plants establish quickly and take little water or maintenance, such as: Junipers, Agapanthus, Escallonia, Dietes, Photinea, Ivy, Day Lilies, Society Garlic- plants that are frequently used in commercial and dense residential settings.

Irrigation is also critical- it must combine both automation and durability to be as low maintenance as possible. Above ground drip systems are often not as suited to these applications because of traffic over them, and follow-up maintenance required.

For projects where little or no maintenance is to be performed, it is always good to have these elements in mind going into the planning and implementation of the project. Most plantings fail because they are not designed to withstand the environment where they are installed and they do not receive the maintenance and care required to flourish.

Anticpated maintenance schedule is a key factor to keep in mind for both residential and commercial projects. Want a garden like the Butchart Gardens? Be prepared to garden on the weekends or pay for a good professional maintenance service (not just mow, blow, and go)

While attending the awards banquet for the San Francisco Chapter of CLCA a couple of weeks ago, I had a chance to talk with Mark Shepherd from Current Cutting Technology. Mark uses a high pressure blast of water, along with digital equipment to cut shapes and interesting tessellations out of stone. The result is that there is no cutting required for a wide variety of unique and interesting designs. His website is definitely worth a visit if you looking for an interesting design flourish for a stone patio, without the hassles of cutting stone on-site.

Image from Current Cutting Website

Off the subject of things landscape, here are some great quotes that struck a chord with me as collected by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done:

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work – Thomas Edison

Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans – John Lennon

How come little kids practice and big kids don’t? –Steve Shull

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about –Charles Kingsley

In order to arrive at what you do not know, you must go by the way of ignorance – T.S. Elliot

There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labor of thinking –Thomas Edison

The average man does not know what to do with his life. Yet wants another one which will last forever –Anatole France

To be what we are. And to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end in life – Robert Louis Stevenson

The palest ink is clearer than the fondest memory – Chinese Saying

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled – Plutarch

Well the spammers have forced me to tighten the restrictions on comments, you must now have a Type Key account to comment- something that I would encourage if you are interested in commenting. I would rather leave commenting open, but right now we are get hit with waves of spam. It would be one thing if the spam was actually trying to sell something (as if posting here would make any impact whatsoever), but most of the time it is non-sense. I wonder what the function of this is with regular email spam as well. Why spam random and disjointed messages? Maybe its a contest to see which spammers can spam the most, or they are waiting for a reply or remove me message, so they can spam that person even more.

We are working on development of a password protected client section to our website that will provide greater information and resources for our current and former customers. More to come in the weeks ahead!

It looks like there was a misprint of the first edition calenders that we sent out at the beginning of the year to clients and friends. If you were one of those who are confusedly seeing January in July, you can print and paste a corrected version (download .pdf). Our apologies for the misprint and confusion.

We seem to be finding our way into several postings on Business Blog anaylsis, such as Mike Sansome’s, Converstations- Changing how business talk to their customers.

In the case of the post he is referring to, the blog is a great tool for posting serial information like construction progress photos.

GardenDesignOnline had an interesting post on Green driveways with a link to an article from the New York Times. The featured architects, Greenmeadow Architects, in the story are right in our neck of the woods.

As for our take on Green Driveways, they are, of course, more maintenance intensive. The technique they show in the article is better than using the traditional turf paver blocks, where the grass tends to die out over time. Newer styles of turf paving block claim to have helped reduce this problem. There are links in the NYT article to manufacturers. Alternatives include permeable pavements such as Polypavement, Decomposed Granite with natural resin binding agents.

I have been riding my bicycle from home to work this week. It is about a 10 mile ride each way from San Rafael to Novato. A few things struck me. First, and this is true of walking as well, biking through a neighborhood gives a completely different perspective than driving. From a landscape perspective this means being able to look at the front yard landscapings (or lack of them of) for the residences along route. It also is a much more sensory experience, a true feeling of distance as it relates to human scale. On Monday the sensory experience was profound as I was drenched from head to toe.

The other curiosity was the lack of bikers on the road. Marin is touted as one of the strongest areas in the country for bicycle activism, such as the Marin Bicycle Coalition, who helped bring home a lot of cash in the latest transportation bill for bike path pilot programs. Marin also has a significant history in the evolution of mountain biking. So why then is it that there are not more bikers commuting on the road? Sure, there are hoards of weekend warriors in west Marin, around the skirt of Mt. Tam, and in China Camp, but where are they during the week?

Maybe this is something that is more prevalent in southern Marin, but in the north part of the county, I don’t see very many bikers. We certainly can’t hold a candle to Holland, where bicycling is a means of transport primarily, rather than a recreational pursuit.

When was the last time you saw a scene like this in Marin?

Bikes and a very small car in Amsterdam. The structure in the background is bike parking with 10’s of thousands of bikes

For More:
Southern Marin Bike Route Map from MBC
Northern Marin Bike Route Map from MBC
Marin IJ Article on new bike paths

With sunny skies returning to California, and temperatures in the 80’s, it is time to turn the sprinklers on. Here are a few tips:

1- Check the settings on your controller- It have been a while since they were adjusted. Drip stations should generally have 20 minutes – 1 hour of scheduled watering time a week, divided in 2-4 weekly waterings. This of course depends on the location, solar exposure, plant types, and type of irrigation system that was installed. Once the thermostat starts to climb into the 90’s, increase the frequency and reduce the duration of watering. Soft stemmed plants or plants in pots may even need two waterings to keep from wilting in high temperatures.

Lawns should receive 30 minutes to an hour per week, again depending on conditions and temperature. More frequent waterings 4-6 times per week are typically required in the warm season.

2- Check your sprinklers: Run through the stations of your controller to check for problems. For lawns, check head coverage and distribution. Heads may have rotated out of alignment, or nozzles may have become clogged. For drip systems, turn on the station and listen for leaks, look for wet spots, or squirting water from drip lines. Where plants have grown over the lines listening may be the best way to find leaks. After the air has escaped the lines, listen for the sounds of escaping water. Check the emitters of plants that look dry.

3- Not sure how much to water? Probe the soil- The soil should be moist but not wet. Brush back mulch around emitters to see the amount of water plants are getting from drip systems. If you want a better way to check moisture content, purchase a soil probe from your local garden center.

Check the posting “Scheduling your Controller in Warm Weather” for more watering tips.

Our blog was recently reviewed by Brian Brown’s Pajama Market, a blog dedicated to reviews of Small Business blogs.

The review is an interesting critique. For the most part it is favorable of the type of material we post here. With regards to subject matter, he has his critiques, such as my series on biking commuters.

Part of the intriguing nature of landscape architecture as a whole is that it covers a diverse range of topics. From a residential landscape construction perspective, Brian is right, biking to work is not pertinent. From a landscape architecture perspective, urban planning issues and alternative transportation are very relevant.

Our blog is meant to focus on subjects relating to our industry, but there is only some much fodder here for a regular running commentary. We also try to post information that is related in art & design, and items that are of interest to our community. In addition, as Brian notes, the blog is meant to be a more personal and varied look at the goings-on of our company, rather than a formalized newsletter approach. As far as his critique, my only critical reaction is that he could have looked at more of our past postings over the last 10 months, instead of justthe last few weeks. There are some very good posts that have both content and scholarship, rather than just pure content aggregation and links.

Well it looks like we finally have a break from the rain, at least for this week. So far year to date here are the precipitation numbers from the National Weather Service (as reported from the Civic Center in San Rafael):

Jan: 4.97
Feb: 2.74
Mar 11.41
Apr: 8.40

This totals 27.5 inches of rain to date, last year we had half this amount (14 inches).

Last year was also a wet year with rain into June:
Jan: 0.00
Feb: 5.02
Mar: 7.22
Apr: 2.07
May: 3.35
Jun: 0.53

Hopefully we do not have a repeat of last year’s May. All of this precipitation affects our landscape projects, resulting in muddy conditions and slowed time tables.

For More:
Find rain data from the County of Marin Website

Here is a follow up to my post last week concerning biking to work and commuting bikers. I wrote an email inquiry to the Marin Bicycle Coalition, who were very responsive in answering:

“It depends which roads you are talking about. The County of Marin doesn’t do “bike counts” to assess the number of people cycling. So if it’s county roads (such as sections of Alameda del Prado or Atherton) then the data doesn’t exist. Yet. However, that will change when the Non-Motorized Pilot Program starts. The County will have to do before and after bike counts, though it’s worth noting that they will probably only do counts on streets relevant to the bike projects being built at a part of that program.”

So as part of the new funding for the pilot programs counts will happen in effected areas. I found from MBC, some data from the US Census Bureau, which confirms my suspicion, virtually nobody (nationally .4%) bikes to work. This may be why the county doesn’t count bikers currently.

Biking has actually gone down quite a bit over time, as well as alternative means of transportation to work.

In 1960:
10% Walked to work
12% Took public transportation
64% Drove to Work

By 1990
4% Walked to work (down 60%)
5.3% Took public transportation (down 56%)
86% Drove to Work (up 35%)
-73% of those who drove, drove alone

Means of Transportation to Work for the U.S.: 1990 Census [I couldn’t find 2000 information]

|Means of Transportation to Work | Number Percent |

|Workers 16 years and over………. | 115,070,274 100.0 |

| Car, truck, or van…………… | 99,592,932 86.5 |
| Drove alone……………….. | 84,215,298 73.2 |
| Carpooled…………………. | 15,377,634 13.4 |
| Public transportation………… | 6,069,589 5.3 |
| Bus or trolley bus…………. | 3,445,000 3.0 |
| Streetcar or trolley car……. | 78,130 0.1 |
| Subway or elevated…………. | 1,755,476 1.5 |
| Railroad………………….. | 574,052 0.5 |
| Ferryboat 1/………………. | 37,497 0.0 |
| Taxicab…………………… | 179,434 0.2 |
| Motorcycle………………….. | 237,404 0.2 |
| Bicycle…………………….. | 466,856 0.4 |
| Walked only…………………. | 4,488,886 3.9 |
| Other means…………………. | 808,582 0.7 |
| Worked at home………………. | 3,406,025 3.0 |

1/ This category was included in “Other means” prior to 1990.

I stumbled up a great post on a Gardenweb forum by a garden center owner. A young couple asked him why his plants cost $25, when Home Depot only charged $10. He explained in his posting that he was lucky to make 7% on his $25, but rather than explain rising gas, water, and overhead cost, he simply replied that if cost was their only consideration you should shop at Home Depot (garden center employees could be working in the lumber department in the winter and often have little plant knowledge).

Pricing is often a sensitive subject with clients. But, if consumers think that their local garden center (hardware store, etc.) can compete with one of the worlds largest corporations on a price basis, they have little or no understanding of the realities of the marketplace.

Why does a beer at a restaurant cost $4 when you could go to the supermarket and buy a six pack for $7? Because, you are paying for an experience of being in a full service restaurant, not just the beer.

We aren’t the cheapest in our market segment either, but we sell more than landscaping, we sell a process and customer service along with our product. We tell potential clients the same thing as the nursery owner, if price is your only consideration, we are not going to be the right fit for your needs.

Below is an email I received from a reader of our blog & website. I always enjoy emails like this one!
In the afternoon, we logged on to your website … and I must say that both my husband and I were SO impressed with your website. It is just amazing!

The photos are absolutely wonderful (and we learned that you took all of them as well — more compliments!), and the articles, information, and links are so helpful. As I have studied the Japanese Tea Ceremony and appreciate all things Japanese, I particularly enjoyed the wonderful photos of the Japanese gardens. Beautifully done!

We have marked your site as a “favorite” and will certainly return again and again. An extraordinary job!

9+ months and still going strong! Thanks to those readers who browse and comment from time to time.

here was an interesting article today in the Marin IJ with links to simulations done by the USGS, trying to replicate the type of movement that occurred in the famous 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. The amount of violent shaking of the Golden Gate’s span that was created in the simulation was amazing (deformations are amplified 100x in the simulations), and potentially horrifying. One wonders if cars on the span during a seismic event like this would be flung into the bay waters below. It brings to mind the famous destruction of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, although that was a case of wind resonance.

After the experiences and disaster reporting that took place after Hurricane Katrina, it is scary to think about a potential repeat of a great earthquake like 1906.

Image from Marin IJ: Computers and Structures, Inc/via USGS

USGS Photograph of SF City Hall after the quake- from Wikipedia
For More:
– USGS page with all sorts of Models and Videos of Earthquake simulations

Enjoy some of my favorite photographs of Ireland- Happy St. Paddy’s

O’Connell Street in Dublin with our famous namesake lawyer and Irish patriot Daniel O’Connell

Moss Covered Trees in Glendalough monastic site, County Wicklow

Ancient Stone Round Tower- Glendalough monastic site, County Wicklow

The Beautifully Rugged Dingle Peninsula on Ireland’s west coast

Moss Covered Facade of Blarney Castle, home of the famous stone

Spring is approaching, with continued rain and cold temperatures in Northern California. One thing that will warm the hearts of college basketball fans is the return of the NCAA tournament. One great tool for those trying to follow the tournament and something that is no doubt reducing productivity nationwide is CBS streaming video free of games from the first rounds. Definitely worth a look.

There were a couple of interesting articles in Marin Magazine recently, the newly launched magazine last year that profiles places and people within the county. The first profiled and asked questions of architect Sim Van Der Ryn, who I had a recent post on concerning a radio appearance and recent book.

The second gave a history and overview of Marin County open space.

Both are worth a look, and the magazine posts its current and archive content online, allowing for easy access.

We are big advocates of digital technology, as can be evidenced by past postings. One element where we are trying to reduce paper work and storage requirements is to go paperless. Using primarily Adobe .pdf format we are in the process of archiving many of our old documents and records into digital form. It makes records searchable from our company network and saves on filing space. Going paperless or the “paperless office,” is not a new or radical notion by any means. Companies such as Xerox or Adobe (and countless others) have been pushing products and services for years. But as costs for good optical scanners and printers continues to go down, and acceptance increases among clients, vendors and our industry in general, it makes going paperless even easier and more seamless. We send our estimates out to clients in Acrobat format and use it for most client correspondence, which means decreased turn around time and easy tracking and search of documents.

Now to make sure everything is backed up!

To our Readers,

Sometimes when reading a blog, if it is a site that you have never visited before, the question becomes what is this blog/site all about?

Part of this is due to the novelty and recent emergence of blogs. Jumping into the daily entries of a blog can be confusing at times. Turned Earth is an informational blog created by O’Connell Landscape, a design-build landscape contractor located in Marin County, California.

We maintain a blog for a few reasons. First, it allows for the dissemination of some great information for both prospective clients, and a wider web audience in general. You will find here a wide range of articles including information on our current projects and company news, information on landscape/garden materials, good links to online resources, local garden events and more.

Hopefully this information is useful in itself, and for clients in our area who are looking start a landscape project, hopefully it lets you know a little bit more about the company, design interests, our projects, services, and expertise.

So please, browse around, we try to post new information regularly (3-5x per week). Our main site also contains some good information, including our Great Gardens & Parks portfolios from around the world. Feel free to comment (it lets us know people are reading!) and feel free to ask questions to get more information.

Regards,

Michael O’Connell
O’Connell Landscape

Over the years we have developed a landscape care booklet for our customers to accompany our finished projects. Proper care of newly installed landscapes cannot be under-emphasized. The booklet defines the plant and lawn care, watering procedures and special care requirements of elements installed (like wood fence staining, lighting or fountain pump maintenance).

An important point to remember is that a beautiful garden is an investment of both money and time (the home gardener’s or the paid gardening service). Continued care will be required to make the garden thrive and look its best and protect and enhance the initial installation investment. Over time plants may need to be added or removed, mulch refreshed, perennial plants replaced with age. The underlying systems of the garden must also be maintained and repaired from time to time (drainage, sprinklers, lighting, etc.).

While this requires continued thought and effort, it is part of the charm and captivation of the garden. It is a living entity that like all living things does better with love and care.