G3 Founding Member Marilee Kuhlmann's Watershed Friendly Landscape
G3 Certified Professionals are trained to design landscapes with water budgets that do not exceed the non-potable water available to be captured on site and utilized before the requirement of supplemental potable irrigation. If you think about it, this is a profoundly sensible way to design landscapes, and pretty much assures the garden always will be Watershed Friendly –reducing or eliminating polluted stormwater runoff and conserving potable water.
At our featured Los Angeles project designed by G3 Founding Member, Marilee Kuhlmann of Comfort Zones Garden Design and implemented by G3 Associate, Scott Mathers of Hey! Tanks LA with Clark & White Landscape C-27 landscape contractors, the 7,500 square foot landscape was designed with very low water plants (10% of ETo = 50″/yr.) requiring approximately 40,000 gallons of water per year during the first couple years of establishment. The existing property conditions featured several large buildings and an expansive concrete parking area.
G3 Associate Scott Mathers Installed 20,000 Gallon System
Rather than rely on municipality-delivered potable water to irrigate the landscape, Kuhlmann and Mathers designed a gray water and rainwater capture system that harvests an impressive 20,000 gallons in above-ground tanks and the additional 20,000 through graywater capture. Graywater is applied first to a hedge of Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Silver Sheen,’ and the excess is infiltrated in a large infiltration area covered in Carex praegracilis lawn. Rainwater, harvested in four 5,000 gallon tanks, is pumped into the drip irrigation system.
Infiltration Lies Beneath Carex Lawn
The overall effect is a peaceful and environmentally harmonious landscape on the outside, cutting-edge water harvesting technology and Watershed Friendly on the inside. Gardens like this are redefining the norm of landscaping, and once again, G3 Associates are at the forefront of the movement.
