Is artificial turf a good replacement for your existing lawn? Especially in Southern California where lawns are being ripped out at a historic pace, homeowners are looking for ways to improve the aesthetic of their homes while reducing water use. Fake grass or frass has been the replacement of choice for some homeowners. Talking with dealers they all express sales are up significantly over last year. Before installing artificial turf it is… Read more »
If you want to elicit a strong emotional response from a water manager in California today just mention how El Nino is going to solve the California drought. A few months ago most people didn’t know the difference between an El Nino and La Nina, but now many people can be heard proclaiming El Nino is going to save California this year. El Nino El Nino, which means Christ child in… Read more »
Can you imagine the frustration of spending thousands of dollars a year on something that is an unavoidable expense? How exciting would it be to find out you don’t have to keep spending this money. It would be great to learn a new way of doing the same thing only differently with less waste and better results. This is exactly what was happening to Kevin Malamma at his home in Bakersfield, California. Kevin had a… Read more »
World population statistics are often used to motivate people to conserve. We have learned about world population exceeding 9 billion by 2050 and many people use this statistic and hope we draw the conclusion by 2100 the world population will be even higher. However, today there is evidence pointing to 2050 being the peak or close to the peak of population and we will see a gradual decline after 2050. This concept was first presented… Read more »
I thought getting people interested in the 4 Liter Challenge would be easy, but based on my first two responses to an email I sent to a few friends and colleagues I quickly learned this was going to be tougher than I thought. The first response I received was: “So basically, we get a gallon jug of water, don’t shower, do dishes, water plants, etc… just sit with our gallon… Read more »
If you don’t have the time to do it right the first time when will you have time to do it over? We have all heard this quote by John Wooden or some variation of this quote over the years. Time is important for irrigation repairs. It is the foundation of how to charge for services, and customers are extremely sensitive to time. One challenge for common irrigation problems is – do you recommend a… Read more »
Getting people to care about saving water is our real challenge. You can find many easy to follow, practical suggestions on this blog or on many other blogs showing just how simple it is to save water. Shorter showers, turn off the faucet when brushing your teeth, install a smart timer, high efficiency nozzles, take out your turf, install drought tolerant landscape install drip irrigation on and on. You may have heard of some of… Read more »
Setting clear goals and measurable performance for water conservation at HOAs is the first step toward maximizing efficient watering. The best place to establish water management processes and goals is in your landscape maintenance contract. The landscape maintenance contract is an agreement between the HOA and the landscape contractor to perform the activities outlined in the scope of work. If this is done correctly your contractors should all be bidding the same processes and goals…. Read more »
In an effort to increase sales, companies are promoting more products as green, sustainable or recycled but recycled doesn’t necessarily mean sustainable. This article by Alan Harris a few years ago about real vs. artificial Christmas trees was one of the first articles to deal with what seemed to be true wasn’t true at all when it came to sustainability. Unfortunately, today as the need… Read more »
People who talk about the weather are often labeled boring people. When people don’t know what to talk about, they talk about the weather. Is it true bad weather is when really boring people come alive? Andy Borowitz wrote this very funny article to help us understand why some people talk about the weather. Last week I had the pleasure of visiting the Jain research, development and… Read more »
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