August fully loaded
Wet gardens need grooming once a week. Dry ones demand attention once a quarter. To learn what to cut and when, do take the native plant maintenance courses offered this month at the Theodore Payne Foundation in Sun Valley or Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont. Then, with all the time you’ve saved, join the wonderful Leigh Adams at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden to learn how to make mosaics. The class stipulates that you make a birdbath. An oppressive stroke. Tile the town! There is no cheaper, prettier or more fun way to add color to a dormant garden. If none of that appeals, there are bird walks and bike rides in the newly compiled dry garden events calender for August.…
High good, low bad: Mead in July 2010
Photograph: Pete McBride on the parched Colorado River delta, by Jonathan Waterman. Click on the image to be taken to Waterman's Colorado River Project.
During a recent discussion of water at the Aspen Institute’s Environment Forum in Colorado, former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt told a packed house: “The American Southwest is not one of those regions where there is water scarcity. It’s hard to believe, given all the hyping in the national and local and regional press.”
The audience and his copanelists–Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project and freshwater fellow for the National Geographic Society, and Pat Mulroy, general manager of Southern Nevada Water Authority (overseeing Las Vegas water)–were taken aback by these statements, writes Jonathan Waterman in the first of a series of Colorado River notes in National Geographic.
Throughout the Southwest, and particularly in a region that I know, the Colorado River …
The Dry Garden: Past as prologue
The West Adams Heritage Assn. celebrates the preservation of historic houses, but earlier this month, a markedly modern installation in Jefferson Park shared its “best garden” prize. Look at the home of Marina Moevs and Steve Peckman, and it’s obvious why: Few gardens could do a better job accenting but not overwhelming their lovingly restored Craftsman home.
After having taken pains to strip, then stain the clapboard for a weathered, muted effect, the first criterion that Moevs and Peckman put to a local garden designer was to keep the plants low. Herbs would be welcome, but they didn’t want any specimens taller than 3 feet. Furthermore, they didn’t want to water — or at least water often. Finally, they wanted to capitalize on a cash-for-grass program that offers rebates for replacing turf with a low-water alternative.
Click here to keep reading about the Peckman-Moevs project in The Dry Garden in …
Mr Smith goes to council
July 6: A laughing Los Angeles City Councilman Greig Smith wipes a tear from his eye as he taunts a Department of Water & Power representative over his success in flouting and, eventually, over-turning the department's hugely successful lawn watering ordinance. The Council is expected to vote in a watered-down ordinance soon. Click on the image to be taken to the city's On Demand video service.
In June 2009, an ordinance limiting lawn and garden watering with sprinklers to two days a week took effect in Los Angeles. Citywide water consumption dropped by more than 20%.
Yet, 13 months later, the ordinance that pushed Los Angeles to the fore of the Western water conservation movement is about to be gutted, having become collateral damage in a roiling brawl over rate hikes and green energy between the City Council and the mayor’s office.
On July 6, the City Council sent the …
The week that was, 7/18-24/2010
"The first time I pulled back the bushes and saw a spring, I knew those magical places would be a permanent part of my life. Our area (north Florida) offers one of the greatest natural wonders on earth. It is a giant, three-dimensional karst terrain that produces a renewable resource.... the finest water on the planet. I can think of no place on the planet more worthy of my attention and love than my own backyard." -- Photographer Wes Skiles, who died last week in a diving accident. Click on the image to be taken to his essay at Florida Springs.com
The man who had filmed where no one had before – whether in the underwater caves of North Florida or on assignment for National Geographic in the blue holes of the Bahamas – died Wednesday in a diving accident off Palm Beach.– Photographer Wes Skiles brought Florida waters to …
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