Reversing Desertification Shows Living Soil Is KEY Factor In Environmental Health
Recently our CEO, Pamela Berstler, spoke in a meeting of Water Conservation Managers noting the paramount importance of educating about soil health in water conservation and pollution prevention. Pamela argued that building a healthy, biologically [...]
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APLD Colorado Class Handouts
We're bringing the Watershed Approach to landscaping to Westminster, Colorado. Here are the class handouts. 20170315_APLD CO_Handouts 20170315_ APLD CO_Handouts_Six Elements
For California Grass: Green Is Out Brown Is In
Our own Francesca Corra, on CBS News talking about the new reality in California lawns. As Californians struggle with one of the worst droughts in their history, the landscape of the state is changing. And increasingly, [...]
How Native Plants Protect Your Beaches, Rivers And Oceans
Written by Ashley Parrish-Decker Recently I've been interested in the principles of permaculture, but in permaculture they say there is no such thing as an invasive plants or weeds, but rather that all things in a [...]
It’s Raining! ECLWRF Infiltration Works!
Here's a quick update to the post originally posted on 12/23/09. The garden has been renovated in November 2014, but the infiltration still is working as designed. Rain cells designed to infiltrate storm water [...]
California HOAs Must Allow Watershed Wise Landscaping
http://youtu.be/hMI4Lr4LMtw Thanks to Assemblywoman Gonzales from Chula Vista, CA, the sponsor of AB 2104, signed into law today by Governor Brown, California HOAs must permanently permit property owners to convert their lawns into California Friendly (Watershed [...]
Lawn Be Gone With “Professor” Paul Herzog
The video says it all. Viola! Lawn BE GONE!
G3’s Kimberly Alexander Imagines Beautiful Garden
Kudos to G3 Qualified Trainer, Kimberly Alexander, for her award-winning landscape display at the San Diego County Fair. The garden was funded by San Diego Horticultural Society and the San Diego County Water Authority. This garden [...]
Hawthorne Has A G3 HOW
G3 leads another Hands on Workshop (HOW). This time, it's Hawthorne City Hall that gets the benefit of the expertise brought by G3 Qualified Trainers Marianne Simon and Tom Rau, assisted by G3 Certified Professional [...]
Kids Learn HOW At Palos Verdes High School
Junior AP students from Palos Verdes High School learned HOW to select, place, and install CA native plants during a three-hour Hands on Workshop, led by G3 Qualified Trainers, Tom Rau and Marianne Simon. The [...]
Santa Monica Water Conservation App
We just love that Santa Monica is adopting this app, a first step toward creating more water conservation awareness by allowing people to compare their water use scores to their neighbors. Ted Chen reports for NBC4 [...]
Hawthorne City Hall Ocean Friendly Garden News
G3 Associate, Tom Rau, is featured in this video clip from KCAL 9 (February 2014) covering the Hands-on Workshop conducted by G3 at the newly completed Ocean Friendly Demonstration Garden at Hawthorne City Hall. Tom, [...]
Visualizing Culver City Curb Cuts
Thanks to Transition Culver City, we are sharing this brilliant video documenting the strong case for implementing a parkway policy that includes no-fee permits for residents, encouraging them to cut their curbs and install Watershed [...]
Surfrider San Diego Sunset Cliffshanger Watershed Basics Class
San Diego G3 Associate, Susan Krzywicki Congratulations to G3 Associate and San Diego Chapter Ocean Friendly Gardens Committee Chair, Susan Krzywicki, who led the three hour Watershed Basics Class at Point Loma, kicking [...]
A Hummer In Hand Worth One In Hibiscus
A Hummer In Hand Every fall it seems we look forward to interacting with the nest-building Anna's Hummingbird, the tiniest of our CA birds (Calypte anna)-- usually as they flit around refueling at [...]
Urban Life Needs To Be Tenacious
Tough Ficus carica Is A CAL-IPC Invasive Plant This image reminds us that plants utilized in the urban setting really do need to be climate-adapted, tenacious beings. Notice how this edible fig, Ficus carica, [...]
The Invasive California Garden Must Be Stopped
Stop The Unholy Trio: Pampas Grass, Fountain Grass, and Mexican Feather Grass You know it when you see it, and you've tried to justify it's "beauty" because your clients ask for it and [...]
Tomato Thief’s Tantalizing Tale
Last year, this man (our neighbor, Sam Naghazei) was observed from our studio popping Sungold tomatoes from the vines growing on our driveway. While we don't encourage people to walk on to the property after [...]
Lovely APLD Summer Evening In The Lafayette CA Orchard
Cynthia Tanyan (East Bay President), Sarah Herman (Event Organizer), and Patricia St. John, APLD (Past National President) at East Bay APLD Orchard Nursery Event One of the great benefits of serving in the [...]
Passionate For Urban Dry-Farmed Peaches
Dry-Farmed Peaches Line The Driveway Summer is definitely here when the blushing Babcock peaches along the driveway begin to ripen. Earlier in the season, we forgot to prune off the tiniest of the [...]
Summer In A Cape Cod Watershed Wise Garden
Any garden can employ the principles of Watershed Wise landscaping that revive the waterways and ocean including Surfrider Foundation's C.P.R. (Conservation, Permeability, Retention), but in Cape Cod, Massachusetts the rationale for doing such is even greater. [...]
Los Angeles Water Future (Less Turf. More Surf.)
LA Stormwater and LA Bureau of Sanitation Watershed Protection Division hosted a Low Impact Development (LID) outreach meeting to help spark interest in spreading the good word of watershed protection. Wing Tam, Adel Hagekhalil, and [...]
Vote With Your Click To Ocean Friendly Gardens Video
Vote with Your Eyes by clicking on this link to the newest Ocean Friendly Gardens video featuring G3 Associate, Renee Roth. Each click casts a vote which will put us in the running for an [...]
Ray At SEA Lab Endorses Ocean Friendly Gardens
Ray at SEA Lab pulled G3's Pamela Berstler aside to share his concerns about the quality of ocean water and to heartily endorse Surfrider Foundation's Ocean Friendly Gardens and West Basin MWD's Ocean Friendly [...]
Tucson Circle Complete At Biosphere2
A whirlwind week of exploring Biosphere1's Green Infrastructure and Low Impact Design (LID) throughout Tucson, Arizona brings itself to a conclusion with a journey to the desert home of Biosphere2. Biosphere2 is an Earth [...]
Low Impact Dunbar-Spring
The holy book (Rainwater Harvesting For Drylands And Beyond Vol. 1) requires that, at one time during their lives, all Green Infrastructure pilgrims must make their way to Brad Lancaster's neighborhood in Tucson, Arizona, [...]
Remembering Vicky Bartish
She was someone who looked you in the eye. She wasn't afraid to ask questions. Even hard questions. She was generous with praise. Self-deprecating to a fault. She loved the natural world. Especially trees. And [...]
Conservation Starts With LID Education
It's time for the Conservation folks to be honest with the public about the realities of "reliable" water supply and join hands with Stormwater folks who need to motivate property stewards to break with a [...]
Jeremy Irons Out Plastic Bag Migration
The Ocean Friendly Gardens Program is a complimentary program to Surfrider Foundation's Rise Above Plastics Campaign. But lots of great activity is happening about single-use plastics awareness. Check out this Heal The Bay video about [...]
Los Angeles Sense of Place
Understanding your Sense of Place -- where are you in the world and what has been/is/should be here with you? -- is central to understanding the Best Management Practices that can be applied to heal [...]
There Is No Life Without Living Soil
What a wonderful and succinct discussion of the importance of Living Soil from a farmer who understands that we humans are from soil and will return to her at the end.
Groundwater Extraction Economics: We Can’t Dig Our Way Out Of This
For all of you newsaholics that don't follow environmental issues, but are following the growing discussion about "extraction" economics (See all recent coverage of GOP presidential candidate debates and their comments about Bain Capital), here's [...]
East vs West: Different Climate, Same Problems
On which coast am I wandering: New Year's Day, dry, 60+ degrees and bright sun? If you guessed that it's short-sleeve weather at Martha's Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts, MA, you are [...]
CA Ag Increases Matricidal (Mother Killing) Practices In 2010
A new report by the CA Dept. of Pesticide Regulation announced today that total pesticide use in California increased substantially in 2010 after posting a decline during the previous four years. Most of this [...]
Matilija Ojai School Yard Habitat
G3 Qualified Trainer, and NEW Ventura County Regional Coordinator, Renee Roth, has been working with the Matilija Junior High School in Ojai, CA for more than two years to transform a pesticide-adled lawn area into [...]
Oxnard Residents Learn HOW To Lose The Lawn
G3 led a series of Hands-on Workshops (HOWs) sponsored by the City of Oxnard, to help people understand how to transform their lawn into an Ocean Friendly Garden using significantly less water, with healthy, [...]
New Study Shows Green Infrastructure Rebuilds Local Economy
A new study by the Economic Roundtable shows how investment that supports a watershed approach to rejuvenation sparks the local economic growth of good, high-wage jobs at least as much as does investment in housing [...]
Up, Up And Away – SoCal Water
This post is all about heavy lifting. First, we've linked to this discussion about the Edmonston Pumping Plant that lifts the water up over the Tehachapis mountains for our benefit here in SoCal. We SoCal inhabitants [...]
TreePeople’s Andy Lipkis: Sponge Gardens Can Save The World
G3's been saying it for years, and it is the central message we teach in all of our classes and embed in all of our landscape design projects. But TreePeople's Andy Lipkis says it with [...]
Air Pollution Presents: The Tempest
So, here's some cheery news from the world of science: Air pollution is actually causing more violent rainfall. Great. What's next? Frogs?
Alameda Gets A Smart Landscape Without Stupa Tenuissima
What a joy to see that, after two years of visiting Alameda (near Oakland, CA), Cagwin & Dorward has finally gotten the green light to make the parkways truly Bay Friendly by removing the Nassella [...]
The Big Fix For Gulf Coast Is Not Corexit
The Big Fix, a great new documentary about the situation in the Gulf of Mexico post the Deep Horizon oil spill, joins together all of the pieces of the puzzle and demonstrates how the utter collapse [...]
Creepy Water Parks’ Legacy Of Excess
We stumbled across this photo essay of creepy, abandoned water parks. Such excess makes you think about the worldwide disregard for available clean water. And the abandoned, dilapidated structures seem harbingers of things to come...
Santa Monica Airport Demonstration Garden
The Santa Monica Airport Demonstration Garden is officially open. Check out G3 Associate, Marianne Simon's beautiful inside and out garden (Entertain).
“The Brazilian”
In honor of G3 Associate, Amelia Lima's birthday, we offer this photo, humorously entitled, "the Brazilian."
What Would Jerseysaurus Think?
66 million years from now, what will archaeologists think of this civilization that killed its mother, the Earth? On a chilly, drizzly Saturday, G3's Pamela Berstler had an opportunity to ponder that question while [...]
G3 Says Hi to NYC High Line
Over the past two decades, New York City has been slowly transforming itself into an even more liveable place with an emphasis on green space and urban food production. One of the City's most [...]
Philadelphia LOVES Green Infrastructure
G3's Pamela Berstler was in Philadelphia speaking at the Low Impact Development Symposium 2011 last week, and had a chance to see the new $6 billion Philadelphia Green Infrastructure Initiative up close. Like many [...]
CA Bay Delta Tree “Duh”
After Hurricane Katrina you would think that the ONE lesson everyone could agree on was that degradation of a wetland's natural flora ecosystem (ie: removal of trees and shrubs that clean water and hold soil) [...]
Pesticides A Buzz-Kill And Not Berry Sustainable
Ever wonder why we at G3 insist on serving organic and sustainably farmed food at our workshops? We believe that becoming Attainable Sustainable starts with the smallest actions and is reinforced by the way we [...]
Useful Stormwater Statistics Calculator
I was preparing my talks for the upcoming LID Conference in Philadelphia and EPA Watersmart Conference in Las Vegas, when I stumbled across this great calculator for quickly comparing costs and benefits of various stormwater [...]
We Drink Canned Soda So Why Not This?
Finally! Here's a great discussion about potable reuse of wastewater and how we at the vanguard of water environmental issues can start using basic psychology (psychological contagion) both to promote recycling wastewater back into drinking [...]
The Truth About Herbicides: Soil Party Killer!
Data on various herbicides' ill effects on soil and plants keeps trickling in. G3 promotes the use of sheet mulching or hand removal for taking out your turf -- It's not hard to do!. Check [...]
OCLDN BBQ Inspires Core Concepts Workshop
A warm August evening. A stunning outdoor living space. Landscape professionals who can cook. Where are we? The O.C. of course! Once again the OCLDN hosts a great event. This time it was a [...]
A Hummer In The Driveway
Look who parked on our driveway. A single mom, perched upon a 2" diameter home of her own construction, nurturing two bean-size eggs. Hers is a handsome little home, glued together with spider [...]
First Day of Spring: What’s Up Ladies?
Spring is Here! Spring is Here! Everywhere in the California native garden, Nature is doing what comes naturally. Caught on film by garden paparazzi, these ladybugs (sometimes called ladybird beetles) are behaving, well, in a most [...]
Residents Apply C.P.R. In Malibu
Vernal Pool at Malibu Legacy Park The City of Malibu recently dedicated it's stormwater retention and habitat demonstration area at Malibu Legacy Park. March rains and dry-weather runoff already have added water to [...]
G3 Professionals: Doing What Comes Naturally
I remember the first time I planted Asclepias tuberosa (Butterfly weed) in a client's garden (now some 10 years ago -- CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!) After about three months, the garden was looking fabulous! Imagine [...]
Japan’s Second Nuclear Disaster
Jonathan Parfrey of Green LA Coalition has written a compelling and distressing memo on the situation in Japan and how it is likely to have an impact on us here in California. http://greenlacoalition.org/resources/email-archive/thoughts-on-the-nuclear-disaster-in-japan/
G3 To Real OC Designers: Let Them Eat Cake!
G3's Pamela Berstler ate cake with the Orange County Landscape Design Network, and talked about pending legislative issues affecting the California landscape design community. An excellent turnout of landscape designers and landscape [...]
Tree of Life Hosts South Orange County Ocean Friendly Gardens Program Launch
Another weekend, another talk in a barn! Tree of Life Nursery hosted Surfrider Foundation's South Orange County Chapter's Ocean Friendly Gardens Program launch. http://sanjuancapistrano.patch.com/articles/make-your-garden-ocean-friendly-by-removing-your-front-lawn G3 Leads Mini-OFG Class At Tree of Life Nursery [...]
Lisa Boone And Emily Green On Ocean Friendly Gardens
“I stopped putting manure on my lawn after reading L.A. at Home columnist Emily Green’s review of Douglas Kent’s book “Ocean Friendly Gardens.” Wrote Green: “This book strives to keep the things that we may apply [...]
West Basin Smart Landscape Expo 2010 Resources
Low Flow Irrigation Retrofit HOW Resources: Precision Series Nozzles we demonstrated can be found on the Toro Website . Netafim CV drip line we demonstrated can be found at the Hunter Industries Website . The Agrifim Drip [...]
Landscaping Resources
RESOURCE LINKS NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION: Surfrider Foundation: http://oceanfriendlygardens.blogspot.com The Surfrider Foundation is a non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of our world’s oceans, waves and beaches. Founded in 1984 by a handful of [...]
Living Soil Resources
United States Department of Agriculture – Natural Resources Conservation Service Soil Biology Authors: Elaine R. Ingham Andrew R. Moldenke, Oregon State University Clive A. Edwards, The Ohio State University Visit the USDA Soil Biology Website http://soils.usda.gov/SQI/concepts/soil_biology/biology.html [...]
OFG Native Plant Resources
Visit the nurseries that provided native plants for sale at the West Basin 2010 Smart Landscape Expo: C & S Nursery Tree of Life Nursery International Garden Center Deep Roots