We are pleased to have Eva Knoppel of the Garden of Eva Landscape Design Group writing this week’s blog. Eva–selected by CBS News’ Latest Best of LA as one of Five Best Landscape Designers In Los Angeles—was voted a winner, for the greater Los Angeles area, of the 2014, 2015 & 2016 Best of Houzz Award in Customer Satisfaction.
As an expert and designer of drought-tolerant, sustainable, Green garden landscapes, Eva’s blog expresses what she tells her clients, “This dought is the perfect opportunity for your landscape’s new beginning.”
Thank you Eva!
USAToday recently interviewed me for a story they did on California’s on-going drought, “Calif. drought challenges state’s businesses“. From the title you can see that the focus of the article was on how the drought was impacting California’s business and my segment dealt with its impact on homeowners.
While the drought is indeed the worst in California’s history and, given the impact of Climate Change, will undoubtedly be with us forever … there is a sunny side (we live, after all, in California) to this issue. And here is what I’m telling my clients, “This drought is the perfect opportunity for a new beginning.”
A Little Background
We live in an area know as Chaparral, or as Wikipedia explains it,
Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U.S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico. It is shaped by a Mediterranean climate (mild, wet winters [a thing of the past] and hot dry summers) and wildfire. Similar plant communities are found in four other Mediterranean climate regions around the world: the Mediterranean Basin, central Chile, the South African Cape Region and in Western and Southern Australia.
Get Real!
This is the reality of our climate and the idea that we can replicate the landscapes of the East Coast with grassy lawns and thirsty plant material, which replicated English landscapes (where there has always been an abundance of rain), simply doesn’t make sense, given where we live and what we’re facing.
Use Reality & Make It Work For You
From the beginning of time gardens have been grown throughout the Middle East (the hanging gardens of Babylon were a wonder of the world and Nile gardens have been depicted in numerous Egyptian tomb paintings. Romans were famous for their gardens as were the Moors in Spain. There are beautiful gardens ringing the Mediterranean today from Morocco to Greece and what all of these gardens have in common is that they reflect their environment, use indigenous and drought-tolerant plant material and incorporate hardscape, water features, stone, brick, pavers, gravel and tile work into their designs.
These are the countries that we should be looking to for inspiration. They offer wonderful examples of how you can turn your water-consuming landscape into a beautiful drought-tolerant one. So take this opportunity to give your landscape a new beginning.
What follows are a few examples of what I’ve been talking about.
Babylonian and Egyptian Gardens
Moroccan Gardens
Mediterranean Gardens
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