[Music]
we have the power to create incredible
outdoor spaces for our homes but how do
we do it in a way that is unique to our
family that serves our community and is
considerate to our environment for
centuries we’ve been poking and prodding
our landscapes trying to make them our
own whether that be for food for
livestock or just garden spaces as a
landscape designer and contractor who
also works in the media I’ve had the
opportunity to work in sea yards across
the country and in my experience I’ve
noticed there’s quite a disconnect
between people and their landscapes we
want our landscapes but we hate the idea
of maintaining them and for all intents
and purposes we no longer need our
landscapes to produce for us which
leaves us with the question what do we
do with our landscapes if you’re like
most of us you place a lawn dog-eared
fence some basic shrubs maybe a patio or
two without much thought into why or if
these spaces truly serve our families
our community and our environment for
all intents and purposes landscapes have
become decorative or supplemental to our
homes
not essential to our fabric which leads
some of us to some creative solutions
and some of us not so much instead of
being an afterthought what if we thought
of our landscapes as an integrative part
of our home the fabric that weaves
together our neighborhoods creating
community and an influential part of our
environment let’s start off with the
home we organize and decorate and try to
make our homes as relaxing as possible
why should we not put the same effort
into our exteriors there’s a ton of
research that supports being in nature
in seeing nature as beneficial for our
health just three to five minutes
looking at views dominated by trees
flower and water can begin to reduce
anger anxiety and pain and to induce
relaxation according to multiple studies
of healthy people reviewed by Deborah
Franklin she also notes Roger Ulrich’s
1984 study that supports the connection
seeing nature and healing in his study
Ulric an environmental psychologist
notices a significant difference in
healing time between patients who had
bedside views of trees versus patients
had bedside views of a brick wall
patients that had views of trees healed
on average one day sooner needed less
pain medication and had less
complications post-surgery so what does
all this mean in terms of your landscape
and quality of life at home
imagine viewing a space that was created
for relaxing entertaining or just
viewing verses of space that haphazardly
exists the spaces we create affect the
way that we feel heal and behave what
does your space look like does it
encourage you to be outside does it
serve your needs according to houses
2018 landscape survey I have the 750
people surveyed 67% said they spent more
time outside post landscape projects 63%
said they relaxed or rested more 51
percent entertained more and 26% spent
more time with their families which is
my favorite so why aren’t more people
creating these outdoor retreats
well data shows that they actually are
however I still find that people are
easily frustrated by the ever-changing
aspects of their landscape and value low
maintenance over everything else which
can lead to some pretty uninspiring
Gardens you don’t need to be a landscape
expert to maintain a garden but instead
of viewing our landscapes as a one-way
list of maintenance issues what if we
considered the value of our outdoor
spaces and created a plan to maximize
their benefits we all know garden is
good for us there’s plenty of research
out there that supports that what if
instead of being on our phone for an
hour a week we spent that time outside
in our garden creating a space that
we’re proud of I personally know that
working with family and friends can be
extremely rewarding and maybe someday
becca-boo here can appreciate that too
alright so let’s talk about how our
landscapes affect our neighborhood and
our communities all of our yards come
together to create a neighborhood and
sometimes a commune
have you ever been to a neighborhood
that just feels good you feel relaxed
and at ease
you may notice mature Street trees and
people walking around while other
neighborhoods feel less inviting and
maybe even uncomfortable you may notice
tall walls or fences on or near the
property line creating a disconnect
between the street and the home when it
comes to our front yards outward facing
gardens and inward facing gardens can
make a big difference on how a
neighborhood feels and where Gardens
have barriers and are created to be
separate from the outside space which
might make sense if you live on a busy
street or you have an ideal social
conditions outside the home while
outward facing gardens are separate from
the street but connect visually having a
conversation between the home in the
street Jane Jacobs a renowned urbanist
and author said streets in their
sidewalk the main public space of a city
are its most vital organs and she’s
right our streets make up a huge portion
of our city and our front yards
collectively contribute to how our
neighborhoods are valued perceived in
use when people take care of their
landscapes it encourages people to walk
those streets which increases
connectivity and builds up community if
you want to change the way your
neighborhood feels consider adding trees
for scale create outward facing Gardens
and if you really want to push it
consider adding benches or maybe mini
corner libraries and don’t be surprised
if this starts to reflect your home
property value so now that we know that
looking at pretty landscapes is good for
us in that welcoming yards create
community let’s talk about what we do to
our landscapes and why I think it’s best
to start off with the lawn as its the
dominant feature in most of our
landscapes did you know almost 2% of the
United States is covered in lon that’s 3
times larger than any other irrigated
crop in the US according to dr.
Christine Mele C research scientists at
Ames NASA Research Center now is this
good or bad
I don’t like to say that material
are good or bad per se rather they have
pros and cons living in Southern
California lawns have gotten a pretty
bad rap as we live in a semi desert and
water is not abundant however we can’t
kick it Americans love their lawns and
we still associate lawns as a sign of
success if you look back at the history
of lawns only the wealthy could afford
these extravagant spaces and it wasn’t
until the 1830s when the first
lawnmowers weren’t invented that these
lawns became mainstream with the
middle-class according to house logic
comm you can expect a 267 percent ROI or
return on investment on installing a new
lawn having a lawn pays off but does
having a lawn in our environment makes
sense we have to do a lot of things here
that don’t naturally occur to maintain
our lawns dr. christine melis you
mentioned earlier said if you go to
california you’ll find still lawns with
cool seeds and turf grasses every square
foot of that turf grass requires 28
gallons of water roughly speaking per
year every square foot but that’s for
the coastal environment if you move
inland to more arid parts of California
that number increases to 37 gallons of
water
yikes that’s a lot of water and that’s
not including all the other stuff we put
on our lawns to maintain them but we’ll
talk about that later let’s talk about
the benefits of having a lawn it’s
undeniable lawns are beautiful they’re
comfortable and they offer us a space to
lay out and play in fact I wrote part of
the speech laying out in Balboa Park
lawns are great for erosion control
rainwater runoff and well-maintained
lawns act as carbon sinks absorbing
carbon dioxide from the air loans also
have a cooling effect according to San
Diego sod farms lawns can be 30% cooler
than surrounding asphalt and 15% cooler
than exposed dirt so the question is to
sod or not to sod I think that lawns
still belong on the landscape material
menu however I think they should be done
wisely and with intention instead of
mindlessly filling spaces with it we
should consider low-growing plant
alternatives in areas that don’t need to
function as traditional lawns and maybe
even consider California native or Nomo
versions of grass for their drought
tolerant aspects and they’re better
adapted to our soils you might be
thinking well what about artificial turf
and let’s chat about that for a minute
as it’s quickly becoming a lawn
replacement and arid climates like our
own artificial turf first jumped on the
main scene in the 1960s when it was
installed in the Houston Astrodome it
went back and forth in popularity on
sports fields until about the 1990s when
it became popular in residential and
commercial use for its green appearance
and low-maintenance
artificial turf is made much like a
carpet with either nylon or
polypropylene fibers as the blades and
it’s usually placed on a few inches of
compacted base material and secured with
long nails for this reason I consider
artificial turf as more of a hard scape
than a lawn alternative I like to think
of it as a green carpet or a patio
extension and while I think it’s a
versatile material for some yard I don’t
think that we should mindlessly use it
to replace all of our softscape or
garden areas like concrete
artificial turf gets hot and can
contribute to the heat island effect
unlike plants that transpire releasing
water through evaporation causing a
cooling effect imagine yourself on a hot
day in a yard full of concrete and hot
artificial turf and building walls
reflecting heat all around
we need our garden spaces to cool things
down and to keep life in our yards
speaking of life did you know plants can
talk in healthy soils plants can
communicate through an underground
fungal Network also known as the wood
wide web in this system the fungi
attaches to the root and absorbs
carbohydrates in exchange for minerals
obtained by the fungus vast reach in the
symbiotic relationship plants can
communicate
they can send signals and they can also
share resources for example if a plant
is being attacked by a certain type of
insect it can send the signals the
surrounding plants to up their defenses
against that insects or if a shaded
sapling is struggling to reach enough
light as larger family of trees can
supplement that sapling until it grows
tall enough to photosynthesize enough
food on its own healthy soils create
resilient plants but you all have but
you have to understand you can’t just
mix together a bunch of ingredients and
call it good healthy soil structure
happens over time by a combination of
things air water insects worms and
nematodes and bacteria as well as fungi
creating these natural systems that
support these plants and we need to
protect those and we need to protect
those systems we’re just barely
understanding the value of these natural
systems ok so let’s talk about plant
selection close your eyes for a minute
imagine a landscape in Southern
California what did you imagine
was it palms well this is quite funny
actually because California only has one
native palm and that’s Washingtonians a
way way out east in California nowhere
near the coast so is it bad to have our
landscapes dominated by non-native
plants every plant has developed
symbiotically with other things in the
environment so it’s beneficial big
picture wise to have natives in our
landscapes to support these natural
systems however I think we can have the
best of both worlds if we choose non
invasive plants that can survive our
Mediterranean climate and combine those
with California natives we can reach a
balance between our personal aesthetics
and our environment now I want to talk
about how we take care of our plants a
lot of us use chemical fertilizers to
help our plants grow herbicides to kill
the plants we don’t want and pesticides
to get rid of insects and while this
seems like an easy solution it’s not
without consequence Foster’s hospital
for small animals at Tufts University
Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine
sinn said exposure to lawn pesticides
specifically those applied by
professional lawn care companies raised
the risk of canine malignant lymphoma by
as much as 70 percent this is stagnant
and if you remember the would wide web
all those natural systems suffer when we
use chemical based products on our
plants which creates a never-ending
cycle of fertilizer and chemical
dependency as we have weaker plants that
are not connected to the larger system
we can do better we can opt for more
organic approaches to our gardening and
reserve chemicals for really limited use
or maybe not at all the last thing I
want to talk about is our use of small
gas-powered tools for our landscape
maintenance a lot of us are annoyed by
the noise of these machines but it’s
really the pollution we should be
concerned about according to a study
that came out from California Air
resource board using a top-selling leaf
blower for one hour emits the same
amount of smog emitting pollution as
driving 1,100 miles that’s the same as
driving from Los Angeles to Denver
that’s crazy
in California 77% of all small engine
use is by California homeowners imagine
the impact we could have on air quality
if we chose recyclable battery-operated
landscape tools or corded tools to
maintain our landscapes manufacturers
have caught on the products are out
there and they can rival the runtime and
power for our residential use we should
consider switching our tools to these
systems and reserving our gas power
tools only really when needed there are
so many choices when it comes to our
landscapes we can choose to make them
integrative parts of our home creating
relaxing areas for us to entertain and
spend quality time with those that we
love or we can keep our landscapes a
separate and disconnected spaces from
our home we can choose to improve our
neighborhoods by creating welcoming
gardens that increase property value and
encourage connectivity or we can turn
inwards and ignore curb appeal
we can choose to consider our landscapes
when designing and maintaining our yards
creating safer and more
balance yards for all of us or we can
continue landscape standards that can be
damaging to our natural systems
landscapes matter what do you choose to
do [Applause]
we have the power to create incredible
outdoor spaces for our homes but how do
we do it in a way that is unique to our
family that serves our community and is
considerate to our environment for
centuries we’ve been poking and prodding
our landscapes trying to make them our
own whether that be for food for
livestock or just garden spaces as a
landscape designer and contractor who
also works in the media I’ve had the
opportunity to work in sea yards across
the country and in my experience I’ve
noticed there’s quite a disconnect
between people and their landscapes we
want our landscapes but we hate the idea
of maintaining them and for all intents
and purposes we no longer need our
landscapes to produce for us which
leaves us with the question what do we
do with our landscapes if you’re like
most of us you place a lawn dog-eared
fence some basic shrubs maybe a patio or
two without much thought into why or if
these spaces truly serve our families
our community and our environment for
all intents and purposes landscapes have
become decorative or supplemental to our
homes
not essential to our fabric which leads
some of us to some creative solutions
and some of us not so much instead of
being an afterthought what if we thought
of our landscapes as an integrative part
of our home the fabric that weaves
together our neighborhoods creating
community and an influential part of our
environment let’s start off with the
home we organize and decorate and try to
make our homes as relaxing as possible
why should we not put the same effort
into our exteriors there’s a ton of
research that supports being in nature
in seeing nature as beneficial for our
health just three to five minutes
looking at views dominated by trees
flower and water can begin to reduce
anger anxiety and pain and to induce
relaxation according to multiple studies
of healthy people reviewed by Deborah
Franklin she also notes Roger Ulrich’s
1984 study that supports the connection
seeing nature and healing in his study
Ulric an environmental psychologist
notices a significant difference in
healing time between patients who had
bedside views of trees versus patients
had bedside views of a brick wall
patients that had views of trees healed
on average one day sooner needed less
pain medication and had less
complications post-surgery so what does
all this mean in terms of your landscape
and quality of life at home
imagine viewing a space that was created
for relaxing entertaining or just
viewing verses of space that haphazardly
exists the spaces we create affect the
way that we feel heal and behave what
does your space look like does it
encourage you to be outside does it
serve your needs according to houses
2018 landscape survey I have the 750
people surveyed 67% said they spent more
time outside post landscape projects 63%
said they relaxed or rested more 51
percent entertained more and 26% spent
more time with their families which is
my favorite so why aren’t more people
creating these outdoor retreats
well data shows that they actually are
however I still find that people are
easily frustrated by the ever-changing
aspects of their landscape and value low
maintenance over everything else which
can lead to some pretty uninspiring
Gardens you don’t need to be a landscape
expert to maintain a garden but instead
of viewing our landscapes as a one-way
list of maintenance issues what if we
considered the value of our outdoor
spaces and created a plan to maximize
their benefits we all know garden is
good for us there’s plenty of research
out there that supports that what if
instead of being on our phone for an
hour a week we spent that time outside
in our garden creating a space that
we’re proud of I personally know that
working with family and friends can be
extremely rewarding and maybe someday
becca-boo here can appreciate that too
alright so let’s talk about how our
landscapes affect our neighborhood and
our communities all of our yards come
together to create a neighborhood and
sometimes a commune
have you ever been to a neighborhood
that just feels good you feel relaxed
and at ease
you may notice mature Street trees and
people walking around while other
neighborhoods feel less inviting and
maybe even uncomfortable you may notice
tall walls or fences on or near the
property line creating a disconnect
between the street and the home when it
comes to our front yards outward facing
gardens and inward facing gardens can
make a big difference on how a
neighborhood feels and where Gardens
have barriers and are created to be
separate from the outside space which
might make sense if you live on a busy
street or you have an ideal social
conditions outside the home while
outward facing gardens are separate from
the street but connect visually having a
conversation between the home in the
street Jane Jacobs a renowned urbanist
and author said streets in their
sidewalk the main public space of a city
are its most vital organs and she’s
right our streets make up a huge portion
of our city and our front yards
collectively contribute to how our
neighborhoods are valued perceived in
use when people take care of their
landscapes it encourages people to walk
those streets which increases
connectivity and builds up community if
you want to change the way your
neighborhood feels consider adding trees
for scale create outward facing Gardens
and if you really want to push it
consider adding benches or maybe mini
corner libraries and don’t be surprised
if this starts to reflect your home
property value so now that we know that
looking at pretty landscapes is good for
us in that welcoming yards create
community let’s talk about what we do to
our landscapes and why I think it’s best
to start off with the lawn as its the
dominant feature in most of our
landscapes did you know almost 2% of the
United States is covered in lon that’s 3
times larger than any other irrigated
crop in the US according to dr.
Christine Mele C research scientists at
Ames NASA Research Center now is this
good or bad
I don’t like to say that material
are good or bad per se rather they have
pros and cons living in Southern
California lawns have gotten a pretty
bad rap as we live in a semi desert and
water is not abundant however we can’t
kick it Americans love their lawns and
we still associate lawns as a sign of
success if you look back at the history
of lawns only the wealthy could afford
these extravagant spaces and it wasn’t
until the 1830s when the first
lawnmowers weren’t invented that these
lawns became mainstream with the
middle-class according to house logic
comm you can expect a 267 percent ROI or
return on investment on installing a new
lawn having a lawn pays off but does
having a lawn in our environment makes
sense we have to do a lot of things here
that don’t naturally occur to maintain
our lawns dr. christine melis you
mentioned earlier said if you go to
california you’ll find still lawns with
cool seeds and turf grasses every square
foot of that turf grass requires 28
gallons of water roughly speaking per
year every square foot but that’s for
the coastal environment if you move
inland to more arid parts of California
that number increases to 37 gallons of
water
yikes that’s a lot of water and that’s
not including all the other stuff we put
on our lawns to maintain them but we’ll
talk about that later let’s talk about
the benefits of having a lawn it’s
undeniable lawns are beautiful they’re
comfortable and they offer us a space to
lay out and play in fact I wrote part of
the speech laying out in Balboa Park
lawns are great for erosion control
rainwater runoff and well-maintained
lawns act as carbon sinks absorbing
carbon dioxide from the air loans also
have a cooling effect according to San
Diego sod farms lawns can be 30% cooler
than surrounding asphalt and 15% cooler
than exposed dirt so the question is to
sod or not to sod I think that lawns
still belong on the landscape material
menu however I think they should be done
wisely and with intention instead of
mindlessly filling spaces with it we
should consider low-growing plant
alternatives in areas that don’t need to
function as traditional lawns and maybe
even consider California native or Nomo
versions of grass for their drought
tolerant aspects and they’re better
adapted to our soils you might be
thinking well what about artificial turf
and let’s chat about that for a minute
as it’s quickly becoming a lawn
replacement and arid climates like our
own artificial turf first jumped on the
main scene in the 1960s when it was
installed in the Houston Astrodome it
went back and forth in popularity on
sports fields until about the 1990s when
it became popular in residential and
commercial use for its green appearance
and low-maintenance
artificial turf is made much like a
carpet with either nylon or
polypropylene fibers as the blades and
it’s usually placed on a few inches of
compacted base material and secured with
long nails for this reason I consider
artificial turf as more of a hard scape
than a lawn alternative I like to think
of it as a green carpet or a patio
extension and while I think it’s a
versatile material for some yard I don’t
think that we should mindlessly use it
to replace all of our softscape or
garden areas like concrete
artificial turf gets hot and can
contribute to the heat island effect
unlike plants that transpire releasing
water through evaporation causing a
cooling effect imagine yourself on a hot
day in a yard full of concrete and hot
artificial turf and building walls
reflecting heat all around
we need our garden spaces to cool things
down and to keep life in our yards
speaking of life did you know plants can
talk in healthy soils plants can
communicate through an underground
fungal Network also known as the wood
wide web in this system the fungi
attaches to the root and absorbs
carbohydrates in exchange for minerals
obtained by the fungus vast reach in the
symbiotic relationship plants can
communicate
they can send signals and they can also
share resources for example if a plant
is being attacked by a certain type of
insect it can send the signals the
surrounding plants to up their defenses
against that insects or if a shaded
sapling is struggling to reach enough
light as larger family of trees can
supplement that sapling until it grows
tall enough to photosynthesize enough
food on its own healthy soils create
resilient plants but you all have but
you have to understand you can’t just
mix together a bunch of ingredients and
call it good healthy soil structure
happens over time by a combination of
things air water insects worms and
nematodes and bacteria as well as fungi
creating these natural systems that
support these plants and we need to
protect those and we need to protect
those systems we’re just barely
understanding the value of these natural
systems ok so let’s talk about plant
selection close your eyes for a minute
imagine a landscape in Southern
California what did you imagine
was it palms well this is quite funny
actually because California only has one
native palm and that’s Washingtonians a
way way out east in California nowhere
near the coast so is it bad to have our
landscapes dominated by non-native
plants every plant has developed
symbiotically with other things in the
environment so it’s beneficial big
picture wise to have natives in our
landscapes to support these natural
systems however I think we can have the
best of both worlds if we choose non
invasive plants that can survive our
Mediterranean climate and combine those
with California natives we can reach a
balance between our personal aesthetics
and our environment now I want to talk
about how we take care of our plants a
lot of us use chemical fertilizers to
help our plants grow herbicides to kill
the plants we don’t want and pesticides
to get rid of insects and while this
seems like an easy solution it’s not
without consequence Foster’s hospital
for small animals at Tufts University
Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine
sinn said exposure to lawn pesticides
specifically those applied by
professional lawn care companies raised
the risk of canine malignant lymphoma by
as much as 70 percent this is stagnant
and if you remember the would wide web
all those natural systems suffer when we
use chemical based products on our
plants which creates a never-ending
cycle of fertilizer and chemical
dependency as we have weaker plants that
are not connected to the larger system
we can do better we can opt for more
organic approaches to our gardening and
reserve chemicals for really limited use
or maybe not at all the last thing I
want to talk about is our use of small
gas-powered tools for our landscape
maintenance a lot of us are annoyed by
the noise of these machines but it’s
really the pollution we should be
concerned about according to a study
that came out from California Air
resource board using a top-selling leaf
blower for one hour emits the same
amount of smog emitting pollution as
driving 1,100 miles that’s the same as
driving from Los Angeles to Denver
that’s crazy
in California 77% of all small engine
use is by California homeowners imagine
the impact we could have on air quality
if we chose recyclable battery-operated
landscape tools or corded tools to
maintain our landscapes manufacturers
have caught on the products are out
there and they can rival the runtime and
power for our residential use we should
consider switching our tools to these
systems and reserving our gas power
tools only really when needed there are
so many choices when it comes to our
landscapes we can choose to make them
integrative parts of our home creating
relaxing areas for us to entertain and
spend quality time with those that we
love or we can keep our landscapes a
separate and disconnected spaces from
our home we can choose to improve our
neighborhoods by creating welcoming
gardens that increase property value and
encourage connectivity or we can turn
inwards and ignore curb appeal
we can choose to consider our landscapes
when designing and maintaining our yards
creating safer and more
balance yards for all of us or we can
continue landscape standards that can be
damaging to our natural systems
landscapes matter what do you choose to
do [Applause]
Please follow and like us: