New Design from School Garden Program

Check out this fantastic garden designed by California's Own Greg Rubin  (little play on words there! ;)  for Park Village Elementary.  Greg volunteered with our school gardens program to design a native teaching garden for the school and came up with this great design that was based on not only the plant communities but the soil tyoe as well!  What a great teaching tool, can't wait to see how it looks installed!

Visit the chapter website for more information about our school gardens program!

Native Plant Garden Tour April 30 and May 1

We are so excited to be announcing the upcoming Native Plant Garden Tour here in San Diego County. The event is scheduled for April 30 and May 1 and we will have over 20 gardens scattered all over the county. They will vary from large rural settings to commercial spaces to suburban streets.

If you would like to show your garden or be a docent, please let us know. Post a reply and we will give you a call!

Thank you Carrie for sharing this on the listserve, another great example of why iceplant is horrible:"Here's an area previously covered with iceplant. During rainstorms, iceplant notoriously inflates like a water balloon, the extra weight pulls the loosened soil down the hill with it, causing a mudslide. This mudslide traveled more than 100 feet down the hill. A few more of these, and the city will be replacing the guardrail, sidewalk, and street. West-facing slope of 30th Street, north of Laurel. BTW, no mudslides were noted on the same slope in the area renovated with native plants, directly north of here......"

For (extremely) detailed information about what to do (and what not to do) with your slope and a list of appropriate plants check out the following article by Bert Wilson of Las Pilitas Nursery: Slopes   or visit Las Pilitas Nursery in Escondido for a printed list of appropriate slope plantings for San Diego County.

While the rainy season is usually a great time to plant it may be wise to wait until the current torrential downpours have ended before disturbing the soil on your slopes, and remember, mulching your slope is crucial to preventing erosion and keeping moisture in the soil while your baby plants are growing!  The ideal mulch is shredded redwood bark or similar because of it's ability to knit together and stay in place on even steep slopes.

Native Totes!

Reducing our dependence on plastics and saving space in our landfills is now even more fun with the new native plant totes from Where's My Bag?

Our own Mary Alice Kessler (website author and technical guru for the chapter) is turning used banners, dogfood bags, and other materials into whimsical and fun tota bags that are great for groceries, a trip to the yoga studio, or even for toting native plants themselves back from the nursery!!

Check out her website by clicking here and see all of her fun designs and help out a local artist and CNPS volunteer!!

The Designer is IN

Landscape Architect, Jeremy Sison of Artemisia Landscape Architecture will be at Las Pilitas Nursery in Escondido on November 6th and November 20th from 9AM to 3PM.
He will be providing design consultations for $20 per 1/2 hour (more than half the normal consultation price!!)
To reserve a time slot call Jeremy at 760-936-6534 or send him an email at jeremy@artemisia-la.com .

Post Plant Sale Sale!!

As if you needed another reason to be sure not to miss this month's chapter meeting here's another one!!!

There are lots of leftovers from this year's plant sale and they are all available for HALF PRICE from 5pm until dark this Tuesday in the grassy area in front of the Casa del Prado patio (where the plant sale was).

 

Bring your checkbook (checks only will be accepted) and come early to load up on Manzanitas, Bush Poppies, native grasses, and lots of other great landscape plants!!

Visit the chapter website for more info!

Kill Your Lawn!

For any of you who still have one or who haven't yet convinced family or friends to get rid of theirs now is the perfect time!    The Olivenhain MWD is offering a $1/sq ft rebate for all clients who remove turf and install drought tolerant gardens!!

The rebate is only available until December 1st though so don't delay!!

For more information and to fill out the application click here or visit the Olivenhain MWD website and scroll down to their Lawn Removal Rebate link under "Headlines".

Applicable Service Areas:
Olivenhain Municipal Water District (OMWD) includes portions of the cities of Encinitas, Carlsbad, San Diego, Solana Beach and San Marcos, as well as the communities of Olivenhain, Leucadia, Elfin Forest, Rancho Santa Fe, Fairbanks Ranch, Santa Fe Valley and 4S Ranch.