A proper fertilization schedule is important for a thriving green lawn. Fortunately, the good folks at Scotts have good products and information available to guide gardeners through the best types, timing, and techniques for lawn fertilization.

In addition to the articles and product information, they also provide an Annual Fertilization Program Builder, best suited geographically by region. This guide recommends products and the best times to apply them for your particular type of lawn grass.

Also see Scotts general gardening information

Working in an industry with a large number of Hispanic workers, good Spanish language resources are important tools to communicate effectively. For example, the newer versions of Microsoft Word include a translation feature, which will translate items directly in word into Spanish.

Another great resource is the online dictionary WordReference.com. Often it is difficult to find compound forms of words in standard dictionaries. Word Reference provides translations based on differences in Spanish dialect and compound word forms.

An example would be that a car is coche, but a cable car is teleférico

Opening this weekend on Saturday evening is the Art League of Northern California’s open photography exposition, “It’s Photography.” This expo was open to entries and one of my photographs will be in the show. From what I have seen so far, there are some very beautiful pieces, so it is definitely worth a visit.

Visit the show to see the piece entered. This related piece from Barcelona comes from the same set of photographs

This recent round of storms hammering Northern California underscores the importance of having a good drainage system to remove water from your property and keep your yard and house dry. Here are a few important points when considering a residential drainage system.

1- Connect house downspouts to drainage system
The water from your roof can cause the most problems if not properly drained away from the house foundation. Often the need for sump pumps can be eliminated simply by connecting all the downspouts and draining them away from the house.

2- Determine the best type of drain for each application
Surface drains work well in hardscape installations where water can be graded to collect in a point, or in softscape areas where there are fixed points of standing water. French drains work best in areas where there is sheeting or subsurface water, or where there is not a easy location to collect water in a surface drain. A french drain is a burried line of perforated pipe in a gravel field, which collects and transports water.

3- Use the right pipe
Flexible black corrugated pipe is best used in situations with French drains when it is surrounded by gravel drainage field, and when it is covered by protective drainage fabric, or a fabric mesh sock that is placed over the pipe. Corrugated pipe does not work as well for transporting water underground over distances. The corrugations trap silt, sediment and debris which can clog up over time. PVC Drain pipe is a better choice. Its smooth interior helps water flow without backups.

4- Where does the water go?
Drainage usually flows down hill, with common outlets being either day lit through to a curb and gutter, out into a back hillside, or in a gravel dispersion field underground, where it can percolate into the soil. The objective is to get water out of sensitive areas where it will damage the house or accumulate in the landscape.

I have a Christmas gift request for all our landscape architects friends out there from all the contractors that construct your projects.

Would it be so hard to just include a quick quantity take-off on your plans?

Two clicks and you could give us the square footage of that 5000 square foot lawn with enough organic bezier curves to make Pierre Bézier himself crazy (the inventor of a type of adjustable curves for computer drafting). As a stocking stuffer could I request that detail sheets with your plans proceed in some logical order and be adequately labeled.

Happy Holidays from O’Connell Landscape!

We have posted downloadable profiles of several of our landscape projects in our new Downloads section. Projects are outlined with examples of garden styles and budgets which can help prospective clients get a better feel for our projects. Also, because all of the files are in an easy to read and print Adobe Acrobat file they make great reference material. As we expand this new feature you will be able to download videos of installations, audio pod-casts, and other materials and portfolio literature.

Example of a Featured Project Cut Sheet

I am happy to post our 100th entry on Turned Earth. We started the blog in June and since then we have posted 100 entries in approximately 170 days. Thanks to everyone who reads the blog, and we hope to continue to provide a good garden resource for those seek general information on the internet, as well as an enlightening source of information for clients and prospective clients.

To follow up on my Thanksgiving related entries (Happy Thanksgiving I & II) concerning Wild Turkeys, here is some visual proof from some open space in San Rafael. By my count this flock numbers over 35 birds. Perhaps soon our #1 concern will be Turkey resistant landscapes instead of deer resistant ones!

Continuing on the technological theme from yesterday’s post, another innovation that has made planning easier, less costly, and more accurate are digitally surveyed basemaps for landscape plans. We use a basemap creation service, a firm that specializes in providing elevation and base information for golf courses and landscape projects. Instead of measuring existing features such as fence lines, house footprints, etc. with a tape measure, the site is digitally surveyed using state of the art digital surveying tools and GPS equipment. A series of points are taken and then translated into a computerized drawing that pinpoints the location of existing features and elevation changes.

What this means is a product that is more accurate, less time consuming to create and much easier to use and manipulate throughout the design process. We are able to have the accuracy of a traditional surveyor, but at a fraction of the cost.

For more information on having a digital basemap created in the Marin or Sonoma County area check out MapMaking Systems, the firm out of Sonoma County that creates our basemaps.

I received an advertisement from Nikon today touting the company’s new D200 Digital SLR Camera. Targeted at everyday photo enthusiasts, this ten megapixel camera retails for $1,700. The way computers, cameras and memory storage devices have advanced is amazing. Our first digital camera for job site photography was a Casio that wouldn’t take a clear image unless it was on a tripod and probably had less than a megapixels in resolution.

Also amazing are the cards that go into modern cameras, the size of a postage stamp and over 1gb in size are amazing considering the technological capabilities of 10-15 years ago. Our early Packard Bell 386 Windows 3.0 Machine boasted a robust 40mb of internal memory. We upgraded that machine with a 100mb memory board (the size of a foot-long sub).

All this exponential storage and quality improvement means that today’s youngsters will probably barely know a film camera. And, their digital cameras will take better quality photographs than the best 35mm consumer film cameras of a generation ago!

I am up in Northern California for this Thanksgiving. Reading the San Francisco Chronicle this morning on my BlackBerry, which is what I am posting from, I noticed another article about Wild Turkeys, which now number over 250,000 in the state.

Turkeys, Thanksgiving’s most recognizable symbol, can be seen frequently in the open space and neighborhoods of Marin. These wild turkeys were introduced in waves beginning in the late 1800’s for hunting. The wild birds are actually natives of Texas, and it seems lately they can been seen throughout the county. According to an article last year in the SF Chronicle the turkey population is on the rise, especially in the North Bay.

This means in addition to a turkey on your table there may be one in the back yard and on your car out front (male turkeys especially like their reflections)

Happy Thanksgiving!

One of the enjoyable things about designing and building gardens for customers is getting to work with all sorts of interesting clients. From lawyers and venture capitalists to school teachers and airline pilots, the personal interaction with our clients is one of the great aspects of this work. We get to meet all sorts of interesting people from any number of professions while working throughout beautiful Marin and Sonoma counties. Often people are making substantial investments in their properties, creating living areas, gardens, reclaiming space or doing a major remodeling job. But the refreshing thing about it is taking the existing property and transforming it to meet a mutual vision. It is something that clients can get excited about, and it makes the process fun.

One of the given aspects about working in Marin and Sonoma counties is it seems that no property (save a scarce few) are on flat ground. Hillsides of all sorts present access and equipment challenges and can make large scale design elements difficult. Fairfax, Mill Valley, Tiburon and other southern Marin communities tend to be the worst offenders. But the tradeoff is some stunning views of those very hills that can make our work so challenging and interesting.

Mt. Tam Viewed from the North

The Wooded Ross Valley

The Sonoma Valley

It looks like my problem, mentioned earlier this week is not unique. There is an article in today’s Washington Post about the rising trend of spamming of blogs. Just another result of the wild west feel of the internet.

On the Good Side of the Internet
As may be evident from reading my posts, I am a huge fan of the online free encyclopedia, Wikipedia. For those people who are unfamiliar with the site, Wikipedia is an online collaborative project where people post encyclopedia articles in a huge information sharing project. I am consistently amazed on the quality and authoritativeness of the information. Here is the power of the technology of the internet, to contrast with the spamming problem mentioned above. It seems like I find new sections of the site everyday, and it can be great for finding information on plants or other garden related information (see for example the term Espalier)

Checking the Blog this morning there were a series of Trackback pings (for those unfamiliar with Trackbacks, a link from another blog or website posted by someone that is in reference or interest to a post). Funny I thought, haven’t received anything like this before. Upon further examination the trackbacks were, let’s just say, not for wholesome family entertainment. Spam isn’t limited to just email.

Here is a second follow-up to our post on wire fencing, this time concerning a 6′ wire perimeter fence that was custom designed in lieu of a chain link fence.

This type of fence provides a nice architectural feel, has some transparency, and does not draw the same amount of attention as a chain link or solid fence.

We just purchased a new digital camera for our office- the Nikon 7900. I have a Nikon Digital SLR (D-100), but we wanted something that could be slipped in my pocket for day to day site visits. I am sure photos from the 7900 will be appearing here and on the site real soon.

I bought the D-100 a couple of years back, when professional type digital cameras were just becoming reasonable. Now of course technology has advanced, and my old camera is outpixeled, although pixels alone do not determine image quality. Much of that has to do with the quality of the glass in front of the camera. The old Nikon has been a great camera and I have easily shot 30,000 plus images with it (including 10,000 in Europe, which can be see in our Great Gardens and Parks section)

More on the Nikon 7900:
Digital Photography Report
Cnet
PC Magazine
Nikon

Adobe Acrobat is commonly used for creating documents distributed off the web, and for a host of other uses. A couple of years back we traded in our Acrobat Reader, for a version of Adobe Acrobat professional. At the time I was unconvinced that the switch would be worth it. We already had a utility from another program that could print documents to .pdf. The ability to create, assemble and add advanced features has definitely been worth while.

With advanced features of the new Acrobat pro you can imbed various types of data, embed audio commentaries that can be played while viewing, and a host of other features. It has made Acrobat a staple of our digital workflow and email correspondence.

I especially like the slideshow feature. By changing the view to full screen you can flip through a .pdf document just like using PowerPoint.

For More:
Hardware Zone article on Acrobat 7
Adobe

I am back in the office this week after spending part of last week attending the wedding of a friend in Lincoln, Nebraska. We are fortunate in California, not only for our notorious good weather, but also for the wide range of plants that are available. In a large part of the country, where cold winters and snow are prevalent, as was the case with Lincoln, landscapes consist of large lawns and a few shrubs.

Now we certainly have similar landscapes utilizing large lawns and border plantings in California, but we also have a wide range of options in ornamental plants that thrive in this climate. We do pay a price for this however great weather and location however. You won’t find many town homes selling in the low $100,000’s or nice homes selling in the $200,000’s.

An Arid Western View

As we approach 70 entries and over 3 months in our landscape blog, I pause to reflect a bit on blogging in general.

Our concept behind having a blog for O’Connell Landscape, was to give a living aspect to our site. Something that would be continually updated and that would let clients and potential customers see “behind the scenes.” Now this blog differs from some other blogs, in that, we typically don’t do blow by blows of what is happening in the company. Rather, we try to post items that would be of interest concerning gardening, materials, landscape architecture, the occasional rant, etc. This allows anyone a good general reference, and hopefully allows potential customers to see a bit of our background and expertise.

Hopefully, we have been successful to some degree in our initial goals. We have had some good feedback from clients that have seen the blog, and from strangers that may find us via Google or other means. The blog is work, typically it takes between 30 minutes to an hour per post depending on the content. But, it is an enjoyable activity, and gives some diversity to the information available on our website.

From the Comments Section

I received an interesting comment from a visitor last week concerning some errors in word usage in one of our posts. Comments are always much appreciated, as it gives us feedback for the site. In my defense, in the last 30 days we have posted on the site close to 10,000 words amounting to approximately 40 pages of text and images, and I am sure there were more than those 2 errors to be found. Should the commenter wish to take on a pro-bono editorship in Turned Earth, I am sure we could keep him busy.

On a Whole Other Level

For those wanting to see blogging taken to an art form, check business author Tom Peter’s blog/website. The staff there really put out a richness of information, that makes this serial seem paltry by comparison.

Here is the final post in a follow up to the blog piece that was aired on KQED public radio. You can find the archived version here, enjoy!

Here is a follow up to my first post, as to when the blog piece “Tales of a Wireless World” will air on KQED public radio. It will be aired this Thursday, September 22 @ 6:07 & 7:37am. For those of you who are not near a radio, but will like to hear the piece you will be able to find it in the KQED archives.

Enjoy!

As it seems everything becomes digitized and done on computers it is interesting to reflect on the role of computer aided design (CAD) in landscape design. Interestingly, many garden designers and landscape architects still draw their plans by hand, especially at a residential scale. Hand drawings have the benefit of a traditional drawn look that works well for residential design. Most major design firms, in the design professions use AutoCAD or some alternative program to draft, (we use Vectorworks) especially for large scale projects.

We prefer computer drafted plans for a number of reasons. First, we typically have our sites digital surveyed with GPS technology. This ensures an accurate basemap and topographic information that can help in project planning.

The other major advantage to digital drawings is their flexibility. Revisions can be made simply without erasing or redrawing plans. We typically color our plans with digital illustration tools that give our plans a more hand drawn and colored look. Often we will include color photographs on plans that can be difficult to incorporate with hand drawn full size materials.

Digital tools are also constantly improving. Digital drawing tablets and ever improving technology mean the gap between digital and hand rendered graphics is closing.

I am happy to announce that the blog entry, “Tales of a Wireless World,” will be featured as a 2 minute read perspective for KQED public radio, our local San Francisco NPR affiliate. I always enjoy the Perspectives series driving around listening to the radio on the way to work, and fortunately this piece was accepted. For those unfamiliar with Perspectives, it is KQED radio’s “opinion page,” featuring listener perspectives and commentary.

I go in to record the piece in the studio next week and will post a follow-up as to an airtime and its location in the KQED archives.

I was driving down Highway 101 last week, the central artery through Marin County on the way to San Francisco, and something was wrong. It was 8:30 in the morning and the traffic was more reminiscent of 8:30 pm. This all changed however with many schools starting this week. Now traffic is back to its typical ugliness.

Not that bad traffic is unusual for the Bay Area. According to one report, the Bay Area had the second worst traffic congestion in the nation after Los Angeles. The Marin 101 corridor is typically one of the worse traffic spots in the area in yearly traffic assessments.

Maybe the new Transportation Bill will help, as Marin landed quite a few improvement projects including the widening of the Novato narrows.

The bad traffic might have been eased a bit if back in the 60’s Marin had been connected to BART. Unfortunately, a ridership that was too small, and concerns about attaching BART to the Golden Gate Bridge prevented Marin’s connection to the system. This was compounded by fears that connection to BART would spur development in the area. Now, of course, any connection to BART would cost hundreds of millions per mile of line (Just witness the SFO airport extension with a price tag of 1.5 billion for just under 8.8 miles).

Until new projects get under way, or more public transit is added (such as light rail from Sonoma County), we’ll have to wait for the next school vacation for easy morning commutes.

For more on traffic visit the Marin Congestion Management Agency

I have been fighting long hours with our company’s wireless network for a new office space, and finally I gave up on the prospect. After about $1,000 in hardware, and too many hours on the phone with technical support, we are going back to a wired network. Hopefully with the new wireless standard that is being developed, the remaining kinks will be worked out of wireless hardware.

It is amazing how the technology is advancing and becoming commonplace, which reminds me of an amazing story a colleague recently told me-

She was in a downtown area with her laptop, trying to catch up on some projects for work, and feeling like getting out of the house. She was working, undisturbed, when an itinerant gentleman passed by. His appearance was disheveled; he was dirty and verbally rambling, scabs covering his face. She focused on her work and ignored him, minding her own business as she inclined the laptop towards her a bit more. For a time the man stopped his monologue and all was silent. It was at this moment when clearly and concisely the man pointed out,

“I bet you could get wireless access from those apartments up there,” as he gestured to the surrounding buildings.

My colleague, a bit surprised, clicked on her wireless network on the laptop. Within seconds, she was connected with broadband speed to a surrounding network. Amazement and a bit of incredulity set in as she contemplated the man.

It was at this moment that the reality of our new wireless, technologically inclined culture hit. The man asked if he could check his email! My colleague, a young woman, prudently told the man that the connection had not been successful and he eventually went on his way.

With this, I contemplate whether I should have, instead of calling technical support, gone downtown in search of such a man. Maybe the dot-com recovery for the Bay Area has not been as good as imagined.

We are in the process of hooking up a wireless network for our new office space and it has been quite an adventure. We are generally tech savvy, but there have been quite a few conflicts with hardware/software and details to configure on our Linksys hardware.

I have spent good chunks of the last few days talking with Linksys tech representatives in India and the Philippines. It is amazing to think of the global reach of technology and telecommunications. The Linksys support has been good as far as these things go. No wait times and knowledgeable support staff; the products, however, have not been plug-n-play.

We are in the process of moving our office to a new location in Novato. Pictures and more info to come, once we finish moving in.

Here are some photos of our most recent finished project. Highlights include Flagstone Entrance Walkway, Brazilian Hardwood Deck and Railings, Copper Landscape Lighting, Flagstone Patios set in sand, Stone Pool Wall and Coping.