Tips & Tricks

For many of my clients, the 1200c is a topic of annoyance. For anyone building a new home or remodeling their yard and disturbing more than one acre, they are required to fill out a 1200c permit through DEQ. Some counties have their own Environmental Service departments that act for DEQ. Either way, you are required to submit specific drawings that cover all grading, cuts and fill volumes, protection from soil runoff into ditches and inlets. There are tons of required details and loops to jump through, but the good news is WE CAN HELP! They are not as scary as they appear. If you follow the directions and examples, it just takes time and the right information. So, if you are looking at disturbing more than one acre, please give us a call and we can walk you through the required steps and make the drawings that DEQ will ask for and make this a much less painful step.

This year we have designed a display garden in the Yard, Garden and Patio Show at the Convention Center. The show starts Friday & Saturday February 17th & 18th, 10-7:30, and Sunday 10-5p. Come see our Roman garden as well as the other ’7 Gardens of the World.’ For more information, please visit YGPShow.com for sneak peeks.

 Being environmentally friendly is on everyone’s  mind these days, and landscaping shouldn’t be an exception. With updates in technology, low energy-consuming items can become even better.

Twelve-volt outdoor lighting systems can almost always be upgraded with LED inserts. Not only do these LED lights use less energy, they are more consistent, easier to install and last a lot longer than traditional bulbs. Using timers and optical eyes can help save energy by turning them off when you don’t need them running.

Irrigation systems can be updated with a combination of low flow pop-up sprinklers for lawn, using drip systems for shrub beds and installing ‘smart’ controllers that know how much water is needed, where and for how long.

Many clients have chosen to install synthetic lawn in their landscapes. Although the initial costs are high, the benefits of not having any irrigation, fertilizers or lawn mowing make this a good option. The lawns also serve as a good place to run water from patios since it can allow up to 25 gallons of water per foot to flow through it. There is even colored, ground-up rubber mulch to use in your shrub beds instead of barkdust. This product is made from recycled tires and will last up to 12 times longer than wood mulch (it can reduce your carbon footprint by 85%).

Lastly, we can all do our part by planting trees to provide shade for our houses and patios. Install native plants  that thrive in our zone and we will all use less water and not have to replace those exotic plants in the future!