APLD California Chapter
October 2008 Newsletter

 

 

President's Message

By Colleen Hamilton

 

 

 

Hello fellow California members.

 

"Why should I be a part of APLD?"  That is a question I hear quite often. Another questions I hear is "Why should I stay a member of APLD?"

 

My response is simple.

 

 

 

I feel that APLD offers these and many more benefits:

 

• Professionalism
• APLD professionals are asked to abide by a "Standards of Practice" and work to become certified which further enhances their reputation as qualified designers.  
• Right to practice
• APLD is the only organization that works to protect our right to practice.
• Inspiration
• APLD develops continuing education and programs to instruct and inspire designers.
• Industry networking
• APLD provides functions for education, socializing, and meeting other industry professionals. You are not alone!

 

My story as an APLD member might be just like many of yours.  I wanted to belong to a professional organization that would help me meet other designers and grow as a design professional. 

 

While I was working in sales and design, in the commercial landscape profession, I went back to school to get a horticulture degree.  I loved gardening and wanted to work in the field of residential landscape design.  My time back in college classes helped me realize how much I still had to learn.  That is when I discovered APLD.  It only took a few months to gather other designers and students together to start what would two years later become a "District" within the California Chapter. 

 

Many members are wondering if being involved in APLD will help them make money. My answer is YES!  A big part of my income has been a direct result of the relationships built within my APLD district.  Here are a few ideas that helped me bring in the business:

 

• Work a home show booth with other APLD members.  Working as a team cuts the expense of the booth, helps you plan and set up a professional booth and allows you to share the time spent working the booth.
• Attend mixers and meet other professionals who will refer you.  People want to work with those they get to know and trust!
• Build relationships with contractors who will want you to do designs for them.
• Be responsible and other designers will give you work.  I still have a client that was given to me four years ago by a fellow designer. I helped design the client's additional acre and also redesigned several other parts of their landscape.  I still work for this client as a consultant.
• Accelerate the learning curve. I believe the more you know the more you can charge.  Being a part of APLD has allowed me to raise my design fees due to my increased skills.

 

There are so many other reasons why I belong:  I love the friendships I have built with APLD members; Attending APLD conferences is a wonderful escape and a learning tool; The classes are great and I take a lot of pictures and use them to show clients ideas from other areas; Clients love the fact that you are involved in something bigger than just your business; The APLD mixers and parties are a lot of fun too. 

 

I believe APLD is the place for landscape designer to be! 

 

Your 2008 CA Chapter President, Colleen Hamilton.

 Members' Section

 

Do You Want To Be Famous?  Play "Name That Newsletter!"

By Sharon Gibson

 

Submit your ideas to give our California Chapter Newsletter a catchy name!  The Chapter Board will review all entries and select a winner.  The person submitting the winning entry will receive a complimentary Chapter membership for one year, up to a $40.00 value.  And for your 30 seconds of fame, the winning and runner-up entries will be published in an upcoming newsletter!  So put on your thinking caps, and let's name this puppy!  Submit your entries to communications@apldca.org  no later than October 21, 2008.

 

 

 

 

The California Lawn Revolution

By Gary Kernick - Sacramento District Events Chair

The traditional suburban lawn that many of us take for granted as a must have landscape element, is under attack. As it turns out, that ever present patch of green is actually not so "green". The average lawn requires massive quantities of water and chemicals. Turf grass is extremely thirsty, and improper irrigation practices often fill our gutters with wasteful rivers of precious water. That water usually contains chemicals from lawn fertilization and pesticide applications. The chemicals travel from the gutter to the creeks and rivers wreaking ecological havoc along the way. And let's hear it for the mow and blow guys...anyone? Lawn care not only creates obnoxious noise pollution, but plenty of noxious fumes as well.

 

But there is hope... a Revolution has begun to change America's obsession with the traditional lawn. The goal is to reinvent lawn culture using combinations of ornamental grasses and perennial plantings. Ornamental grasses eliminate the environmentally negative aspects of turf grasses and do so with style. Sublime textures, stunning forms, and shimmering seed heads create breathtaking effects that the ordinary lawn simply cannot match. A single grass variety can be planted to offer a sleek contemporary tableau.  Or multiple varieties peppered with flowering perennials invite you to a dreamy, meadow-like garden.

 

This month, Sacramento APLD District is having a meeting on this worthwhile topic. The event will feature the nation's leading authority on grasses, John Greenlee.  Greenlee wrote the book on grasses - literally. He is the author of the bestselling The Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses and the soon to be released Meadows by Design. His impressive client list includes Steven Spielberg, Eric Clapton, The Hess Winery, The Getty Center and Disneyland. We are  promoting the event to landscapers, nursery people, the general public and of course, to designers. APLD members and their guests are invited to a complimentary VIP brunch from 9AM - 10AM with the purchase of seminar tickets. We hope you will come.

 

See calendar entries below for Saturday, October 25^th. You can also log on to www.apldca.org and click on events, or call (916) 488-3374.

 

 

 

New Procedures for Changing your Membership Data

By Sharon Gibson

 

Effective immediately, if you have changes in your personal membership data, such as a new email address, new phone number, etc., please send those changes to APLD Headquarters at customerservice@apld.org.  Your changes will be registered in the central database and will then be sent to ours.  To expedite your changes at the Chapter level, please copy membership@apldca.org when you submit your changes.

 

 

 

Memorial Tree Planting

By Fran Adams

 

If you would like to help plan or attend a small tree planting ceremony to honor the memory of Dorothy Humphrey, please contact Fran Adams at fran@senseofplace.us or (650) 328-7655.

 

 

 

Green Tip of the Month

By Katey Mulligan

 

Have you ever wondered about those little plastic windows on your envelopes and whether they are actually recyclable? Well... different systems and different jurisdictions do it differently (no big surprise there...) San Francisco does take them into the recycling stream, along with these other paper items...

 

YES - Paper Items

• Cardboard - Corrugated
• Cereal boxes - no lining
• Computer & ledger paper
• Egg cartons - paper only
• Envelopes - windows okay
• Junk mail & brochures
• Magazines
• Newspapers
• Phone books
• Shredded Paper -
  place in sealed paper bag and label "Shredded Paper"
• Wrapping paper

For the full picture of all things recyclable into our San Francisco system, see the link below...

 

http://www.sunsetscavenger.com/residential/recycling.php?t=r

 

Enjoy!

 

 

San Francisco Gives Back

By Alma Hecht, APLD

 

In August, rather than compete with the National APLD conference, the SF District decided to encourage independent community service. Here are samplings of the wonderful things our members gave.

 

Audrey Newell, The Foxy Garden

Audrey, our SF District Secretary, continued her community service with Mission Roots. "A neighbor and I founded Mission Roots earlier this year to green the sidewalks in our neighborhood." The now twenty-nine strong households-organization is transforming their concrete streetscapes into sustainable, permeable, and tough-as-nails public micro-gardens. All are designed with drought tolerant or native plants. Mission Roots eagerly awaits the award of a SF Community Challenge Grant to aid with installation costs. Visit PlantSF.org for more information and for instructions. "Being part of the larger (and growing!) community feels great."

 

Deanna Glory, APLD, Deanna Glory Landscape Design

Deanna's year of mentoring for the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization is a constant reminder of how smart and inspirational kids are.  "My eleven-year-old little sister Sarah and I were at a local nursery recently to pick up a few plants for a client when Sarah said, 'Hey, isn't that a Kangaroo Paw?' I was proud and amazed that she remembered the plant from months ago on a walk in SF Botanical Gardens."

 

Jared Vermeil, Vermeil Designs

Jared was recently approached by Palo Alto's Eastside Preparatory School to warm up their campus. A series of recent expansions left the school's modernist architecture feeling cold and industrial. Canopy, the Palo Alto non-profit tree planting organization donated trees and labor to help the students green their campus. They designed a diagonal grid of Carpinus fastigiata as the first visual upon entering campus and also planted a grove of Quercus shumardii outside their visual arts auditorium. Jared says, "Now the main quad is a place to hang out, meet, and hold informal classes. It was a most rewarding experience with two great organizations that I'd love to work with again."

 

Alma Hecht, APLD, Second Nature Design

When not busy organizing APLD District President tasks, composing articles for the APLD or Glen Park newsletters, I spent time in August helping to restore my local 75-acre open space in Glen Canyon. "Fortunately it was not all hand-to-hand combat with Cape and Algerian ivies or Himalayan blackberry. One morning, we climbed into Islais Creek and after an hour's toil removed a thicket of invasive watercress. Now standing on the wooden bridge at the end of the boardwalk you hear Islais's soothing flow once again."  Additionally I have put my years of pruning experience to the test shaping young oaks, toyons, coyote brushes, sticky Monkey Flowers among other trees and shrubs in a lush demo garden.

 

  News from our Gold Sponsors

 

Unique Lighting Systems

 

Unique Lighting Systems would like to assist you in "Lightening up Your Workload".

In an effort to better serve design professionals and contractors throughout the landscape lighting industry, Unique Lighting Systems has created the Specification Design Support Program, offering complimentary landscape lighting CAD drawing services to assist you in creating functional, attractive and intuitive lighting plans on time and on budget.

 

Your clients depend on you to provide them with specific product choices and well-detailed installation methods. This program is designed to assist you in producing lighting plans that assure your clients are getting the very best value.

 

The benefits of this program include:

 

Ø      Time Saving Lighting Design Services at no charge

Ø      Lighting Design, Wiring & Engineering

Ø      Ability to provide your customers the best lighting design layouts

Ø      Recommended Certified Installation Professional listing

Ø      Consumer Buyer Protection Plan on our products

 

Time Saving Lighting Design Services at no charge

 

You will receive a complete landscape lighting design and system layout of your job. Transformer and fixture selection, based on your concept and within your specified budget, a complete lighting legend with product details and quantities, product specs and lighting notes.

 

Lighting Design, Wiring & Value Engineering

 

Just like fine art, landscape lighting requires excellence and expertise.  With over 150 years of combined lighting design and installation experience, Unique offers top quality products that maximize artistic expression as well as in-house lighting professionals who are experts in installation and available for training to help achieve a safe and reliable lighting system. Equally as important, Unique Lighting professionals are skilled in the technical and creative aspects of landscape lighting wiring and product layout for all your designs and projects.  Let us do the work for you.

 

Consumer Buyer Protection Plan on Our Products

 

Unique Lighting Systems, Inc. is the ONLY manufacturer in the industry to provide a Consumer Buyer Protection Plan (CBPP) for the contractor and homeowner. The CBPP sets both contractors and design professionals apart from their competition by providing complete protection and assurance for the homeowner.  CBPP also provides the customer with confidence that their contractor has installed their lighting job correctly and to the standards of the manufacturer. This plan is a commitment from Unique Lighting Systems, Inc. to stand behind their products and the people who install our system.

 

To start benefiting from this free service, please visit our website at the following URL:

http://www.uniquelighting.com/customer_support/SDSP.htm

 

If you have any questions, please contact Paul Talbot at 760-291-2406.

Within 24 hours of receiving your application, Unique Lighting Systems will contact you to determine a schedule for delivery of your completed landscape lighting plans and specifications.

 

Awards & Recognition

 

Green Roofs in People Magazine

 

The latest edition of People magazine (with the Best and Worst Dressed on the cover), diverts its usual focus to show some of the best-dressed houses!  The last article "Up On The Roof" shows inviting photos and states that planting on rooftops is the "cutting edge of a new fad."

 

Cynthia Tanyan of Mozaic Landscape Design, a Bay Area APLD member, was honored to have a photo of one of her green-roof projects included in the magazine.  In 2006 Cynthia designed the soil and planting, as well as much of the infrastructure, with invaluable input from her husband and crew, who also installed the project over the course of a few months. She consulted with Ed Snodgrass (mentioned in the article) and John Greenlee along the way.

 

The article features four photos from various parts of the country: Washington, Pennsylvania, California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, and her project which is a modern residence in the hills of Sunol. The different styles that green-roofs can take are pictured, and the article encourages people to consider this "growing trend" happening in cities and towns across the U.S.

 

"Green-roofs are a fascinating landscape project," says Cynthia.  "It's all about layers, details, and being an advocate for the plants when all the building contractors are trying to get the water off the roof!"

 

 

 

San Mateo Arboretum Garden Tour

 

Kudos to Peninsula District APLD members Jessy Berg of Berg Designs and Frank Niccoli of the Village Gardener for their lovely, art filled, no-lawn backyard on the San Mateo Arboretum Garden Tour. You showed how gorgeous sustainability can be! The concrete aggregate side yard with the brick diamond design was a knockout.

 

 

Eyesore to Eye Candy!

 

Kelly Greenwood's transformation of a garage wall in Menlo Park will be featured in the October 2008 issue of Fine Gardening in an article on "How to Hide an Eyesore" by Daryl Beyers.

 

 

Congratulations

 

In recognition of excellence in September 2008, Jonathan Silverman was awarded a Desert Green Scholarship in environmental horticulture from the Desert Green Foundation.  "I am very pleased to know that I am recognized as a leader from my volunteering efforts with SF School Volunteers, California Native Plant Society, Project Alcatraz, Pe'ah Farm, and the horticultural certifications I received at city college of San Francisco.  I really enjoy learning and continuing to build professional skills within the horticultural industry."  

 

APLD California Chapter Upcoming Events