It’s official: Typical L.A. garden goes unused

A new study out of UCLA shows that “even in a region with clement year-round weather, the families hardly used their yards, and this was the case even among those who had invested in outdoor improvements and furnishings.”

The Dry Garden: UCLA in theory and in practice

Stephanie Landregan, program director of the UCLA Extension Landscape Architecture & Horticulture program. Click on the image to find out about certificate courses. Photo: Emily Green

Nobody ever said that doing the right thing was easy. Students in UCLA Extension’s landscape architecture and horticulture program now learn this before leaving with a certificate. “All of our advanced design classes used to be make-believe,” said Stephanie Landregan, appointed program director two years ago. “Now every one of our advanced classes is involved with the community. Every one of our students has real projects and reality checks. The big ideas get tested.”

Just such a test happened in November, when an undergraduate from UCLA’s environmental science department contacted Landregan wanting to know how his class might introduce a water-efficient landscape somewhere on the 400-plus-acre campus. Landregan partnered his class with a group of her graduate extension students, and the team soon

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    Emily Green by e-mail at emily.green [at] mac.com
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