What We Do
Sustainable Landscape Design
Sustainability is a commitment to live in harmony with our environment. It’s a capability of natural and cultural systems to maintain themselves over time. There are five considerations in designing a sustainable landscape:
Functionality
A functional landscape allows for the easy accomplishment of movement, work, recreation and leisure that occurs in and around the landscape. These functions are related to the actual process or activities associated with a family, a business, or a public place.
Low maintenance
A maintainable landscape provides for reduced maintenance at a particular maintenance level or condition. This lowers labor costs and makes maintenance operations easier. It also reduces the need for inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, equipment, water and other things.
Environmental harmony
An environmentally sound landscape design must first be functional and maintainable. In addition, the proper design of plants and related hardscape greatly affects the quality of that landscape over its entire life. For example, a philosophy of "right plant right place" as well as "right plant right purpose" can dictate the amount of environmental, disease, and insect stress that a plant can tolerate. A plant continually in stress will require more maintenance. That means more labor, fertilizer, pesticides, and ultimately cost.
Cost effectiveness
Cost should not dictate whether the landscape is functional, maintainable, or environmentally sound. These considerations should be met regardless of the budget. In many cases, the installation cost of a sustainable landscape may be less.
Visual aesthetic
A visually pleasing landscape is what the design strives for. The considerations of functionality, maintainability, environmental soundness, and cost effectiveness provide the framework needed to create a visually pleasing landscape.
Firescape Landscape
A firescaped garden is a lush and tranquil space that rejoices your senses. It doesn’t have a particular definition or style. A firescape garden is everything YOU want: a desert oasis, a Mediterranean retreat or a mountain quiet asylum. There are no guaranteed fire resistant plants, but designed wisely, they can slow down the spread of the fire and protect your home and the family.
Well maintained landscape is the answer to the fire response management.
Firescaping principles:
- Create a minimum 30’ wide defensible zone around structures
- Remove dead vegetation
- Create islands of plants with space between them
- Keep it green and low growing
- Identify emergency entrances and exits
- Seek the advice of a professional to make sure that you own a FIRE-SAFE home
Our firm provides our clients with important facts, knowledge and solutions to various aspects of wildfire management. We focus on the creating sustainable fire-safe environments based on science starting from the house itself and its closest proximity. In collaboration with experienced home inspectors we arrange a home evaluation to provide you with precise report on your house condition and solutions for improvement.
Stormwater Management
We believe nature demonstrates the best way to manage stormwater and, whenever feasible, we try to mimic natural processes. This means designing systems that filter stormwater through plants in above-ground drainageways, where it then flows into shallow basins and soaks into the ground, thus replenishing aquifers and reducing phosphorus reaching the ocean. Sites that embrace ecological stormwater management add beauty to the landscape, provide habitat, and serve as neighborhood amenities.
Erosion Control
Erosion occurs when rain and moving water dislodge and carry soil particles and organic matter into waterways. This can cause numerous problems, like ruts and potholes in hardscape requiring constant maintenance, loss of valuable soil, airborne dust generation and drains and channels clogging by mud built-up.
Most hillsides can be made relatively stable with plants. The best practices
require using a combination of groundcovers, shrubs, trees, and perennials
with the areas between plants covered with appropriate mulch and/or boulders.
Layers of vegetation prevent erosion by reducing rainfall impact on the
ground. In some cases structural erosion control measures are necessary
to support plant stabilization techniques.