Seminar Descriptions for 2025

West Garden Center Room Seminars

Lessons Learned from 4 years of challenges of creating SmartLandscapes for MWELO

Learn how to design, install, manage and maintain a low water use landscape that conforms to MWELO. Dr. Fujino shares his lessons learned from four years of experience.

Speaker: Dr. David W. Fujino, California Center for Urban Horticulture, UC Davis
Presentation Time: 8:30 – 9:30 a.m.
Garden Center West Seminar Room
APLD 1 ceu, QWEL 1 ceu, WCISA 1 ceu

Fire-Smart Landscaping Workshop

Join us for a Fire-Smart Landscaping workshop, where you’ll learn how to create defensible spaces that protect homes from wildfire while maintaining curb appeal. As landscape professionals, you play a critical role in helping communities adapt to the increasing threat of wildfires. This workshop will cover fire-smart landscape design, selecting fire-resistant plants and mulches, the importance of ongoing maintenance, and effective communication strategies for clients resistant to vegetation removal. Led by wildfire experts from Fire Safe Marin, this session will equip you with the tools to enhance wildfire preparedness and resilience through informed landscaping practices.

Across California, residents face an increasing threat from wildfires, whether from direct fire ignitions in their area or indirectly through rising insurance rates and policy non-renewals. Over the past decade, the severity and frequency of wildfires have surged, driven largely by climate change, prolonged drought, and increased urbanization in fire-prone regions.

Landscaping for wildfire resistance is one of the most accessible and critical steps homeowners can take to safeguard their properties. While retrofitting homes with noncombustible materials is important, these efforts are only as effective as the strategic landscaping around the property, based on fire-smart principles. “Fire-scaping”—the creation of defensible space through vegetation management and careful plant selection—is a science-based approach to managing the fuels (plants) surrounding homes, with the goal of stopping or significantly slowing the spread of fire.

As landscape professionals, your role is pivotal in helping communities adapt to this growing threat. This workshop will equip you with the tools and knowledge to communicate wildfire safety effectively to your clients, and to contribute meaningfully to creating a wildfire-adapted California.

In this workshop, you will learn:

• Fire-Smart Landscape Design Basics: Best practices for creating defensible space that protects both property and lives.
• Choosing the Right Plants and Mulches: How to select fire-resistant plant species, identify fire-prone vegetation, and implement effective strategies to reduce fire hazards.
• Importance of Maintenance to Reduce Risk: Why maintaining defensible space is essential for long-term fire prevention and risk reduction.
• How to Communicate Fire-Smart Landscaping to Clients: Strategies for addressing common homeowner concerns and resistance, particularly when it comes to vegetation removal.

Workshop Details:

This 1-hour session will be led by wildfire mitigation experts from Fire Safe Marin, an organization with decades of experience in educating both residents and professionals about wildfire risks and home defense. You’ll walk away with practical tools to help your clients protect their properties and strengthen community resilience, starting with the landscaping choices they make.

Speaker: Jessamyn Hise, Fire Safe Marin, Community Outreach Manager
Presentation Time: 9:45 – 10:45 a.m.
Garden Center West Seminar Room
APLD 1 ceu, QWEL 1 ceu, WCISA 1 ceu

Super Simple Soils

Take a dive into the rhizosphere and review basic soil science topics while learning more about plant nutrition, soil fertility, and soil ecology. Review fertilizers, amendments, and other strategies to improve and protect landscape soils.

Speaker: Dave Phelps, Garden Enlightenment, Chico, Ca
Presentation Time: 11:00 – 12:00 p.m.
Garden Center West Seminar Room
APLD 1 ceu, QWEL 1 ceu, WCISA 1 ceu

Blue Ribbon Plants for NorCal Landscapes

A review of high performing landscape plants tested by the UC Landscape Plant Irrigation Trials (UCLPIT) over the past 5 years at UC Davis. The UCLPIT program evaluates landscape plant performance under three different irrigation treatments to develop recommendations compatible with the WUCOLS Categories of Water Needs. The program awards a Blue Ribbon to plants that maintain a high level of aesthetic performance on the WUCOLS Low treatment over the deficit season. This presentation will review the performance of select trial plants including Blue Ribbon winners and offer guidance on utilizing the trial results for plant selection.

Speaker: Jared Sisneroz, UC Davis Researcher and Graduate Student
Presentation Time: 12:15 – 1:15 p.m.
Garden Center West Seminar Room
APLD 1 ceu, QWEL 1 ceu, WCISA 1 ceu

New pests of landscape trees in the San Francisco Bay Area

This presentation will provide an overview of new pests that have been seen on landscape trees in the San Francisco Bay Area.  We will focus on the Invasive Shothole Borers (ISHBs) that were detected in San Jose last spring, but will also cover the Mediterranean Oak Borer, found in the North Bay.  We will contrast the wood-boring beetles, which can cause considerable damage, with leaf-feeding insects (elm leaf beetle and oak moth) that are usually less damaging.  We will discuss beetle biology, the damage they cause, and the integrated pest management (IPM) techniques that can be applied to these pests.  We will conclude by reviewing IPM resources from the University of California IPM Program for each of the pests we discussed.

Speakers: Igor Lacan, PhD, University of California Cooperative Extension Advisor for the San Francisco Bay Area, specializing in urban forestry
Presentation Time: 1:30 – 2:30 p.m.
Garden Center West Seminar Room
APLD 1 ceu, QWEL 1 ceu, WCISA 1 ceu