Sacramento Landscape Company
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Sacramento Landscape Company
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SLC News and Advice Page
Preplanning - Critical to Final Outcome We are looking forward to working with you on your 2010 landscape projects. Plants are beginning to bloom, it's time to landscape. All the options for hardscape, plants, and landscape uses, take valuable leisure time to explore. Start the process by reviewing landscape related magazines, books, and websites. Take down addresses of landscapes you like. Go to the nursery and write down names of plants that you prefer. You will be that much more satisfied with the final design. Also, can you recall from the winter poor drainage on your property? Consider maintenance requirements for planned landscapes and realistically assess your maintenance capacity. Will you have the time and energy? Can your existing landscape maintenance professional take on the new addition? Proper design declines in value if maintenance is insufficient. Even inert objects in the hardscape require maintenance like pressure washing and sealing. Weed control and irrigation repair are two other maintenance "surprises". If you know in advance, you will prevent a significant amount of replacement costs and repair costs. We install. To get to the intended design effect, your nurturing and maintenance over the next two to five years, minimum, are a necessary part of the process. Lastly, this journey may help you when we discuss design alternatives. We want your landscape to be a good fit and to grow into it's intended look. February 15, 2010 Wayne Blanchard
Are Lawns Obsolete in Sacramento? As Sacramento area homeowners confront increased water rates and metering, the lawn we have grown fond of since our childhood becomes more of an option and less of a requirement. Environmentalists correctly point to native grasses, shrubs, and trees that have flourished in our climate without irrigation for thousands of years suggesting they may be the prudent direction in selection of plant material for our homes. It is unlikely hiking through naturally occurring oak chaparral outside the developed perimeter of our urban areas that we would encounter in June a lush green patch of lawn. Likely we would find a golden meadow of knee high wheat like plant along with resolute deep green drought resistant woody shrubs and, if we are lucky, a welcome proud oak to provide shade. The challenge in a typical urban setting with much less space is to maintain the curb appeal of our home and not to suggest our landscape is nothing but a neglected overgrown lot of weed. Fortunately, we have predecessors from Southern California and Marin County who have dealt with this challenge and have provided guidance. There are options. Lawn can still exist but not in as great a proportion. Green and color can still survive our hot summers with low maintenance drought tolerant shrubbery and prudent water conservation strategies. Maintenance does become an issue. Larger shrub areas create a need to control invasive weed like Bermuda and clover. Since our busy schedules probably don't include kneeling down in our planters under the hot sun pulling on Bermuda weed, weed control is a critical need in water wise landscape design. There is no guarantee that weed won't penetrate the best of designed planters. However, good thick mulch, quality fabric, and vigilant monitoring of weed emergence will pay big dividends. Sacramento Landscape Company likes design challenges. Call us and let us see if your landscape can reflect our natural flora and still have the beauty you desire. June 26, 2007 Wayne Blanchard
Water Conservation - Good for Plants and Good for Pocketbooks
Many of us have already learned about water meters. If your home is new or is located in established neighborhoods with retrofitted meters, you know about being billed on use of landscape irrigation (sprinklers). If your home is not metered, you may not know that all homes in the State of California will eventually be metered. It is state law. And it is highly unlikely water rates will ever decline. Water is like crude oil. It is not only limited in supply, there is a significant correlation to energy used in it's production. These energy costs are also rising. For example, water purification processes and pumping consume significant amounts of electricity. If you are planning a landscape project for your property, this is a rare opportunity to control quantity of water necessary to keep plants healthy. Having worked in water conservation and landscaping, we are uniquely qualified to address this increasingly important landscape planning parameter. For example, one of the advantages of viewing a landscape project with water conservation in mind is that typically this approach favors plants that already are well suited to Sacramento's Mediterranean climate. Plants suited to a Mediterranean climate have adapted to wet winters and dry summers. Genetically, they need less summer water. Being on the cutting edge of affordable irrigation technology is also something Sacramento Landscape Company can offer. We advocate weather based irrigation timers that provide real time adjustments to irrigation scheduling. Plants benefit. Pocketbooks benefit. You have one less thing to do or if you adjust your irrigation more than once a year, your time savings increase. Although we typically turn our sprinklers off in the winter the following graphic is a good visual of water savings.
Following this approach, which Sacramento Landscape Company will facilitate, you not only have thriving plants in your landscape, you keep monthly water bills in check. Water use outdoors during the growing season can account for 75% of your water bill. There might also be the satisfaction that you have created a landscape that will have minimal impact on our shared environment. Call or email us to learn more. February 20, 2007 Wayne Blanchard
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