The Unintended Consequences of Water Conservation

...in California and, as a result, cities have instituted mandatory landscape watering restrictions and cut off irrigation to parks and other city properties. Lawns are brown and trees are dying. Back in May, two University of California Cooperative Extension horticulturalists, Donald Hodel and Dennis Pittenger issued a provocative position paper “9%: Perspective on the California drought and landscape water use” that argues that these restrictions h...

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Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands

...We’re especially fond of his method of hijacking street gutter runoff and directing it with a small improvised check dam into a dug out basin in the parkway. We’ve watched our neighbor’s lawn watering runoff for years and wondered if we could find a way to use that water. You can watch two videos showing Lancaster at work here. And a podcast here....

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Trees Susceptible to the Polyphagous Shot Hole Borer

...laevigata)* 10. Avocado (Persea americana) 11. Mimosa (Albizia julibrissin) 12. English Oak (Quercus robur) 13. Coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia)* 14. London plane (Platanus x acerifolia) 15.Cottonwood (Populus fremontii)* 16. Black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa)* 17. White Alder (Alnus rhombifolia)* 18.Titoki (Alectryon excelsus) 19. Engelmann Oak (Quercus engelmannii)* 20. Cork Oak (Quercus suber) 21. Valley oak (Quercus lobata)* 22. Coral tr...

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Mulch, mulch, mulch!

...erfect lawn. I know many happy kids who live in such yards. And as a kid myself, I preferred such spaces. I have no fond memories of grass. I do have strong memories of playing in wilder spaces–under trees, among boulders, in a rainy gutter, in the snow, at the beach. Lawn, for me, was always a suspicious place full of dangerous sprinkler heads and hidden dog poop. The one exception I will buy for lawn is as a good surface for babies and toddlers....

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Saturday Linkages: Arboreal Angst

...eror Charles and ‘Carlina’ in Giovanni Cadamasto’s herbal: Harley MS 3736 via Medieval Manuscripts Blog Arboreal Angst: a short history of recent architectural/plant mashups Louisville needs trees! Cedar plant swing holder Ancient watering hole in Southern Arizona at risk from border wall construction On the Surprising Benefits of an Un-Mobile Phone Is Our Fear of Smartphones Overblown? Same Pesticides that are Killing Bees Significantly Shorten M...

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