April 1st, 2010 by Owen
Kobe Mulch: Artisanal, Local, Sustainable
The refined estates of the Santa Barbara area are set to become the latest beneficiary of the Kobe Mulch craze that’s suddenly sweeping America. Modeled on Japan’s famed Kobe Beef, Kobe Mulch is an artisanal mulch that’s produced from specially selected wood chips and subjected to a series of complex, labor-intensive [...]
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September 15th, 2009 by Owen
Speaking of monsters (see “Garden Wise Guys” below), the time has come to talk of some of the design practices that ought to go the way of the Stegosaurus. Just as this ancient dinosaur became extinct when conditions changed around it, the changing conditions of our present world are making lots of formerly accepted gardening [...]
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September 15th, 2009 by Owen
Learn about sustainable landscaping the [...]
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September 15th, 2009 by Owen
OK, so this is me hard at work at my drafting board, designing a new garden for one of my first clients. This photo was taken a few years ago; I’ve been at this a long time. When I first started doing landscaping, I didn’t realize it would become my life’s work. But here I [...]
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September 15th, 2009 by Owen
I’m not going to mention any names, but there’s a town in San Diego County that just did an incredibly stupid thing. Towns do stupid things all the time, of course, but for sheer obliviousness this one really stands out. Some time back a developer with a plan for developing a blighted property in the [...]
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September 15th, 2009 by Owen
WHAT’S COMPOST?
Compost is nothing more than plant parts broken down by microorganisms into stuff that looks like soil. It’s the most natural, and the most common, recycling program on earth and it’s happening in your yard right now whether you do anything about it or not. In fact, here’s a case where benign neglect is [...]
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August 18th, 2009 by Owen
I don’t watch TV much. I’m too busy and TV makes me restless, and besides I enjoy the smug feeling of being able to act as though I’m above all that. But now and then when I’m in a hotel room and there’s nothing better to do, my dark [...]
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August 15th, 2009 by Owen
Hello gardening friends,
It has been close to a year since I completed the manuscript for my latest book, Sustainable Landscaping for Dummies. Writing a book is a huge commitment and it takes a lot out of a person. For several months after the book was finally finished, I didn’t want to write anymore than I [...]
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