Seminar Descriptions for 2024

East Seminar Room

Landscape Triage!

Rescuing Old Landscapes

We see it everywhere and yet it’s invisible to most: Old, wasteful, and non-functioning landscapes. Dave will provide a path forward for HOA’s and Commercial Sites that are struggling to comply with water restrictions and current building codes. From defining and identifying functional turf and community space to prioritizing “low-hanging fruit” with little budget and time, you’ll learn strategies to comply with the MWELO and AB 1572 while honoring executive orders N-82-22, N-7-22, and the California aesthetic.

We, as landscapers, can make a huge difference in water conservation, increased biodiversity, and climate change resiliency. This seminar will give you the verbiage and the strategies to create real change in our landscapes. If you work in or manage commercial landscapes or HOA’s, these tools and a phased approach can help you educate, support, and gain the confidence of the stakeholders and decision-makers of these sites.

Speaker: Dave Phelps
Presentation Time: 7:30 – 8:30 a.m.
Garden Center East Seminar Room
CEUS: APLD (1), QWEL (1), WCISA (1)
Irrigation Association 0.25 CEU, Tier 3

How to Improve the Survival of Plants

Description: There are many factors that contribute to the survival and thriving of newly transplanted plants in the landscape industry. The most common factor is soil moisture in the correct amount. The majority of the dying tree situations are due to the lack of maintenance, including improper watering.

Dying trees and shrubs make the landscapes look unattractive. Constantly replacing plants results in an immature landscape. New technologies can make the use of precipitation and sustainable irrigation to stabilize soil moisture. Case studies across North America will illustrate how these methods can reduce the need for frequent irrigation and reliance on landscape maintenance to keep plants alive.

Three Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the environmental and societal benefits of green infrastructure and urban forestry
2. Study the main technical challenges encountered in green infrastructure, urban forestry and landscaping industry
3. Understand the most important factor for the survival of newly installed plants is soil moisture to the rootball, not how much water is dispersed onto the planting area. Learn how to solve the problems with real-life case studies across the United States.

Speakers: Gordon Mann; Wei Zhang, Education Coordinator; L. Dean Alberty, Director of Strategic Planning

Presentation Time: 8:45 – 9:45 a.m.
Garden Center East Seminar Room
CEUS: APLD (1), QWEL (1), WCISA (1)
Irrigation Association 1 CEU, Tier 1

Online Lead Generation

Want to learn how to get a steady stream of leads into your sales pipeline? Join Ron McCabe of Everbearing services for an overview of the many options available for generating leads online. You’ll learn what the pros and cons are of each option, and gain invaluable insights into what it takes to achieve success marketing your business online

Speaker: Ron McCabe
Presentation Time: 10:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Garden Center East Seminar Room
CEUS: APLD (1), QWEL (1), WCISA (1)

Successful Tree Planting Projects Require More than Just Planting

Description: The realization of the benefits of the trees where people live is increasing. There are many tree planting projects around the world:  Million Trees New York, LA, Denver, Shanghai, London, Ontario, and Trillion Trees. These projects appear to be initiated as a political event allowing officials to show up on planting days for photos. The passion is at its peak at the event time, and disappears after the trees are planted. Trees need 2 to 5 years of water to establish depending on the species & climate. Aftercare is rarely part of the planting events.

The statement Plant the Right Tree in the Right Place is utility mantra to avoid pruning trees. The benefits of trees and the return on investment come when we Grow the Right Tree in the Right Place for the Right Reason. We start with the reason, why are we growing this asset? Then we look at the space and select the trees that may grow well there. Then we select the tree, and properly plant it. The next steps are to maintain, prune, water, and provide organic matter to grow the trees. We need enough space for the mature size of the tree. Then as the tree grows, we can experience the benefits trees provide and are catalogued in the itree program.

Three Learning Objectives:

1. Explain the benefits and importance of growing trees where people live from social, environmental, economic, and health aspects.
2. Recognize common causes of plant death in urban environment, which is known to be a harsh growing environment.
3. Evaluate new technologies that help to solve the watering challenges with natural rainfall, targeted irrigation, and by increasing the available plant water.

Speakers: Gordon Mann; Wei Zhang, Education Coordinator; L. Dean Alberty, Director of Strategic Planning
Presentation Time: 11:15 – 12:15 p.m.
Garden Center East Seminar Room
CEUS: APLD (1), QWEL (1), WCISA (1)

The Climate Ready Landscape Plants project. Testing plants for drought tolerance across the Western region

The Climate Ready Landscape Plants project was initiated as the University of California Landscape Plants Irrigation Trials (UCLPIT) project that evaluates the performance of plants exposed to three different deficit irrigation treatments based on reference evapotranspiration (ETo). This project started in 2004 as a graduate student research project, was expanded periodically, and then duplicated at the UC South Coast Research and Extension Center in 2017.

The project recently has expanded to the University of Washington, Oregon State University, Utah State University, and the University of Arizona that facilitates the comparison of plant performance in response to deficit irrigation treatments across the western region of the U.S. The data collected leads to recommendations for irrigating those plants that are used by landscape designers and architects to design landscapes that are ater conserving and to comply with California’s landscape water conservation regulation, the Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance (MWELO). We will discuss project background, plant lists, data collected, and irrigation recommendations.

Speaker: Dr. Lorence Oki
Presentation Time: 1:15 – 2:15 p.m.
Garden Center East Seminar Room
CEUS: APLD (1), QWEL (1), WCISA (1)
Irrigation Association 1 CEU, Tier 1

Developed landscapes are missing the healthy soil and root microbiome

Description: Trees only need water, organic matter, and sufficient space to survive. People usually remove the organic matter, and that is the initiation of the problems. Healthy trees need healthy roots. Healthy roots need partners to survive harsh conditions and thrive when conditions allow. The partners are the soil and root microbiome.
The root and soil microbiome is the microorganism community that consists of bacteria, fungi, and archaea. A healthy soil and root microbiome not only increases nutrient and water uptake by the plants but also enhances disease, drought, and salinity resistance. After the topsoil is stripped off and compacted, after pesticides and fertilizers are applied to the soil, after new trees with rootballs dipped into insecticide bath, and after excessive deicing salt washed into roadside tree wells (where snow removal and freezing roads occur), how many of the beneficial soil microorganisms are still there? we will review the benefits of a healthy microbiome and how to build one. Case studies with side-by-side comparisons and in harsh urban environments will be presented.

Learning objectives:

1. The importance of urban forests to the health of human beings.
2. What is missing in the developed landscape environment and why we are struggling growing trees.
3. Why soil biodiversity is the key to a healthy tree.

Speakers: Gordon Mann; Wei Zhang, Education Coordinator; L. Dean Alberty, Director of Strategic Planning
Presentation Time: 2:30-3:30 p.m.
Garden Center West Seminar Room
CEUS: APLD (1), QWEL (1), WCISA (1)