CLCA Central Coast Chapter

Transcription

1 Calendar Please mark your calendars for these important upcoming events. Thursday, Mar. 6 Tuesday, Mar. 18 March Thursday, April 3 Thursday, May 1 Friday, May 2 Tuesday, May 20 May Thursday, June 5 Friday, June 27 Thursday, Sept. 4 Chapter Board Meeting 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m., Carbonero Café, 915 Disc Drive, Scotts Valley More information: Regan Barry (831) Supplier /New Member Night 4:30 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Seascape Golf Resort, 610 Clubhouse Drive, Aptos More information: Regan Barry (831) San Francisco Flower & Garden Show 10:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m. San Mateo Event Center, 1346 Saratoga Drive, San Mateo More information: sfgardenshow.com Chapter Board Meeting 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. The Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave, Santa Cruz Chapter Board Meeting 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m., Carbonero Café, 915 Disc Drive, Scotts Valley Social Mixer and Beautification Awards Entry Deadline 6:00 p.m. Featuring the CLCA Allstars, Malone s Grille, 4402 Scotts Valley Dr, Scotts Valley ChapterDinner Meeting 6:00 p.m.- 8:00 p.m., Topic: Social Media. Location to be determined. Beautification Awards Judging all day Chapter Board Meeting 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. The Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave, Santa Cruz Beautification Awards Banquet 6:00 p.m.- 10:00 p.m., The Dream Inn, Santa Cruz, More information: Andrew Tuckman (510) Chapter Board Meeting 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. The Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave, Santa Cruz 95062

2 Web Sites & Apps for Landscapers By Dinah Irino, Floravista This month I ll tell you about SwissArmyKnife and the website SwissArmyKnife is a fun app. All those times you need a compass, level, magnifying glass, and small ruler out in the field. It s all in this handy app. The magnifying glass is especially helpful; to read the small numbers on spray heads and emitters. And the level is great for quick measurements. The WaterWonk website takes the WUCOLS database a step further with pictures. Once you choose the parameters, it generates plant choices like the WUCOLS site, but you can click on see it and up pops these flickr photos. It is very nice to show clients pictures of plants. If you have a favorite app or website, me at flora.vista@sbcglobal.net and I can review it for a future column. THE REAL DEAL. We re more than a product source, we re your business resource. FIND US: TALK TO US: Check out our partner program and take advantage of money-saving offers! IRRIGATION TURF PRODUCTS LANDSCAPE LIGHTING EROSION CONTROL WATER FEATURES HARDSCAPE

3 LEAF Application is Available Online Submitted by John Sassaman, State CLCA Office (916) Please share this link with students! clca.org/scholarship The California Landscape Contractors Association is pleased to announce that the application for LEAF scholarships is now available online. Since 1972, the California Landscape Contractors Association s Auxiliary has been offering scholarships to college and university students majoring in landscape-related programs. In 1988, the Landscape Educational Advancement Foundation (LEAF) was formed to carry on the tradition of awarding financial aid to deserving students. Eligibility: Any student attending an accredited California community college or state university majoring in a landscape-related program and taking a minimum of six units is eligible. Deadline to apply is April 15, 2014.

4 Partner of the Month Delta Bluegrass Company has been providing premium sod products and installation services to the green industry since Delta Bluegrass Company maintains the industry s highest quality turf blends while constantly working to improve varieties that minimize watering requirements. We have a team of representatives ready and available to answer your questions about our traditional sod varieties and our California Native sod blends. Our territory ranges in northern California from Redding to Paso Robles. Please call or visit our website for more information. IRRIGATION SUPPLY, INC. Great things are created with quality service Serving your irrigation needs since 1976 and ALL major manufacturers Commercial and Residential Drainage Supplies Erosion Control Pumps Sprinkler & Drip Irrigation Landscape Lighting Contractor Referrals Delivery Available FAX Olympia Avenue, Seaside CA

5 Get Real About Water Management What Every Maintenance Manager Needs to Know By Chris Roesink, CID, CLIA, CWCM, CIT, CLT-I, Hunter Industries Perhaps you ve noticed the influx of competition in the landscape maintenance industry over the past few years as many landscape companies sought shelter from a slow construction market. Most companies are fully capable of managing labor to trim bushes, pick weeds and keep turf lush and green, so what makes your company different? Are you feeling the pressure of doing more with less profit? By now you have undoubtedly heard concerned customers talking about rising water rates. Have you had a competitor try to snake an account with the promise to save your customer water and reduce their overall maintenance costs? If you haven t, you likely will unless you take control now. This is a perfect time to get real about water conservation. Now that the economy is ratcheting up, smart property owners are going to be investing in their properties and tackling years of deferred maintenance. Now is the time to strike. Where do you start? Challenge your crew to hold themselves accountable for irrigation usage starting now. Get real about water conservation and talk about it with your staff weekly. Reach across the table by notifying your customers that you have their backs and are concerned about rising water rates. Even if you ve had an account for years without major irrigation enhancement, why wouldn t you let them know you are doing your best with an old, inefficient system but have the potential to make it more efficient? If a property owner doesn t know the weak points in their system and potential savings associated with addressing them, they are not likely to hand you a check and say do what you can to save water. You need to show them the ROI, and you won t be able to do that without data from the site. Start with low hanging fruit and work smart under PRESSURE - Pressure test - Get control of your pressure. One of the biggest causes of inefficient irrigation is too much or too little water pressure. Adjust or install pressure regulators, tune flow control or regulators on valves to the worst-case head. Renozzle underperforming spray and rotor zones with lower flow nozzles to revive the system. Get your pump serviced and make sure it is not doing damage to your system causing you additional headaches. Remotes - Work smarter not harder. Does every controller on your sites have a connection for a maintenance remote? If not, ask yourself this: are you losing serious productivity and shorting your customers on system maintenance opportunities by running back and forth to the controller or valve box? Get a pigtail or a smart port enabled controller and take control of your system. A few minutes will save you hours a year and take the pain out of site inspections. Site Observations - Document the following: Flag line breaks and stuck or weeping valves. Use marking paint to mark locations of worn out pop-ups and leaking seals. Photograph run-off, pooling water, overspray and significant low head drainage. This will serve as a nice report for your client and make necessary future repairs obvious for irrigation technicians. Make as many quick adjustments as you can, but note the larger repairs will be addressed in later visits. Schedule controllers properly using multiple programs for each hydro-zone. This is the single best thing you can do to save water and optimize the health of your landscape. Ten minutes on every station is not water management. Separate turf, shrubs, groundcover, and drip into individual programs to give you more control of the watering frequency. Enter peak season run times for each zone and then adjust the seasonal adjustment or percentage adjust for the time of year. Activate Cycle and Soak features, if available, or allow for multiple start times in your programming to avoid run-off. Document your schedule so it is saved on your smartphone and keep a laminated copy onsite in the controller so others know when zones will water. For assistance developing a base program check out this free scheduling app: www. hunterindustries.com/tools/runtime. Understand unique challenges of the site. Good water managers quickly hone in on the special needs of a site. Are there mixed hydro zones (sun/shade) (turf/ succulents), coverage or head spacing issues (hot spots), plant material obstructions or simply high visibility locations with significant overspray? These areas will require more time and labor to sort out long term and some special attention will be needed to balance the schedule in the meantime. Read meters - Start reading meters weekly. No excuses! Track consumption and share it with your clients so they know you are on their side monitoring usage. If you have flow sensors, invest the time to re-learn flow once your delivery system is finetuned so you don t get false alarms. Educate - Educate your customer and crew on what can be expected from good routine system maintenance (typically in the contract) vs. enhancements and upgrades (typically referred to as extra work). Updating aged systems should not come out of your pocket, so document your successes and opportunities with pictures and simple explanations. Most clients like to know what to expect and look to you as the expert. After all, most pay money for reserve studies and audits, so why wouldn t they include irrigation in long range budgeting? Be the bearer of good news and alert them to device upgrade incentives or funds available to offset the costs of conservation. In Southern CA, check: socalwatersmart.com If you level with customers and take their point of view, you just might strengthen your relationship and sell more upgrades than you thought you would in Get real about water management and make it a great year! Submitted by Aaron Huxley Aaron.Huxley@hunterindustries.com

6 Feb 20th Dinner Meeting at Ecology Action Photos by John David, Prime Landscape

7 Drought-proofing Your lawn Many Landscapes in California, receive much more water than they need. When irrigation is applied too frequently plants may appear happy, however the roots will remain shallow and not search for more water deep in the soil. Always, and especially now, increasing root depth increases the drought tolerance of your lawn. Consult our website for drought tolerant blends and varieties which include Bolero Dwarf and 90/10 Tall Fescue, California Native Sod blends and Bermudagrass varieties. These grasses have proven to handle higher degrees of drought stress and usually recover quickly when watering conditions improve. Talking to a Landscape professional and following the suggestions below will go a long way to drought proof your turf: Start with deep tine aeration of your lawn NOW! This allows water, oxygen and nutrients to better penetrate into the soil. Next, identify your irrigation lines and flag your sprinkler heads to avoid causing damage during the aeration process. Tune-up your irrigation; run the system to check for leakage and proper coverage; repair as necessary. Switch-up your irrigation cycles: o o Apply one deep irrigation cycle per week using a cycle soak method. Depending on your soil type, wait minutes then apply a second cycle soak. This will push the water deep into the soil increasing the drought tolerance of your turf. The best time to water your turf is between 2am and 5am. Visual signs of drought stress in turf: OK The color of the turf will start take on a blue/grey cast leaving your blade height higher than normal can also help to reduce stress. OK Expect the overall appearance and color of your turf to look similar to this Most lawn species can survive on 30% to 50% of reference evapotranspiration (eg. If reference ET is 2 per week, apply 0.6 to 1 of water.) NOT OK! OK Keeping your lawn from reaching this drought stage is critical to ensure replacement is not necessary when conditions improve. Remember to consult our website for drought tolerant blends and varieties

8 January Treasurer s Report By Laurie Reily, Treasurer, laurie.reily@yahoo.com January, 2014 Opening Balance:... $8, Income: Dinner Meetings....$47.94 Holiday Dinner... $ Newsletter Advertising... $ Awards Dinner... $ Awards Sponsors... $ Suppliers Night... $ Golf Tournament.... $ Total Income:... $2, Disbursements: Board Meeting.... $ Suppliers Night... $ Newsletter... $ Constant Contact...$40.00 Web Site...$71.88 Marketing... $ Donation... $ Total Disbursements:... $1, Ending Balance:.... $8,966.24

9 January 2014 Board Meeting By Dinah Irino, Secretary On January 9, 2014 a board meeting was held at Café Carbonero in Scotts Valley, CA. In attendance were: Regan Barry, Andrew Tuckman, Laurie Reily, Mike Ruscoe, Dinah Irino, Jerry Allison (by phone), Rob Leuer, and Chris Elliott. The meeting was called to order at 11:45 AM Minutes: Andrew motioned to approve the minutes from the two October board meetings, it was seconded by Rob and approved by all with Mike abstaining. State Update by Regan: The $100 approved at the previous meeting will be sent as a donation to CLCA LandPAC. The first regional chapter meeting will be held 1/11/14 in San Jose. These regional meetings will replace the CPC meetings by next year and provide more of a voice from our chapter at the state CLCA. At a future meeting a representative will be designated to attend these meetings. The state is working on the 2014 events calendar, changes in structure, and membership benefits. Treasure Report: Laurie presented a suggested budget for 2014 that was reviewed by the board members. Chris made a motion to approve which was seconded by Jerry and all approved with Dinah abstaining. Board of Directors Reports: Chris offered to help with a phone call and face-to-face contact to welcome new members. He would like to have an electronic welcome packet to send them, too. Andrew is working on dinner meetings, the electronic newsletter with Ki, and the beautification awards. Chris made a motion with Regan seconding that a review of the beautification awards categories be made. Andrew will chair a committee with other board members to look into updating the existing categories additions and subtractions. There will be more discussion at a later meeting. Dinah will send and to Laura with a list of landscape contractors and vendors to be contacted about membership in CLCA. Also she will start a column about apps and websites of interest to the landscape industry. Mike talked about non-renewal memberships and dividing the nonrenewals among board members to contact about joining CLCA. Currently we have 62 members in our chapter. Rob will be authoring the Partners Corner this year. And he wants to do more to recognize member vendors at meetings. Regan summed up the meeting by saying we are committed to making CLCA a great experience for all and look forward to keeping the positive momentum in 2014! Adjournment: At 1:30 PM Andrew made a motion to adjourn with Chris seconding.

10 Chapter and State Directory 2014 CLCA Central Coast Board of Directors 2014 CLCA State Board of Directors Central Coast Chapter Past Presidents President Regan Barry, Coastal Evergreen Co Scotts Valley Drive Scotts Valley, CA (831) Events Director Andrew Tuckman, Vision Recycling & Del Conte Landscaping Boscell Road Fremont, CA (510) Treasurer Laurie Reily PO Box 604, Mt. Hermon, CA (831) Membership Director Mike Ruscoe, Ewing Irrigation 5550 Soquel Ave, Santa Cruz, CA (831) Secretary Dinah Irino, Floravista Karen Drive Prunedale, CA (831) Education Director Jerry Allison, Jerry Allison Landscaping 1931 W Beach St, Watsonville, CA (831) jerry@jaland.com Legislation Director John David, Prime Landscape 3635 N. Main St. Soquel, CA (831) jd@primelandscape.com Associate Member Director Rob Leuer, Bamboo Pipeline 321 N Aviador St, Ste 201 Camarillo, CA (510) rleuer@bamboopipeline.com Communications Director Chris Elliott CLT, Aqua-Green Landscaping 130 Humbug Lane Santa Cruz, CA (831) aquagreen1@aol.com Newsletter & Web Editor Ki Bowman, M/O Graphics 519 Seabright Ave, Ste 105 Santa Cruz, CA (831) ki@cruzio.com Executive Assistant Laura Leuer (510) lleuer@comcast.net President Chuck Carr ValleyCrest Companies (805) ccarr@carrlandscape.com President Elect Javier Lesaca Lesaca Landscape Company (661) jl@lesacalandscape.com Immediate Past President Frank Niccoli, CWM The Village Gardener, Inc. (650) frank@thevillagegardener.com Secretary/Treasurer Ted Sandrowski Sandrowski Landscaping, Inc (530) tedsandclca@aol.com Director of Chapter Services Richard Sheffield Antioch Nursery Landscape & Tree Serv. (661) antiochnursery@frazmtn.com Director of Communications Jessica Centeno Centeno s Landscaping Co., Inc (310) Jessica@centenos-inc.com Director of Education Aaron Huxley Hunter Industries/FX Luminaire (408) aaron.huxley@yahoo.com Director of Legislation Pete Dufau CLT Dufau Landscape, Inc (805) dufauland@aol.com Director of Events Eric Briner Briner and Son Landscape Management (559) eric@briberandson.com Director of Membership James Walker Landsculpt (650) landsculptgardens@gmail.com Director of Resource Management Shari Collins Gardens 4 the Soul 805) shari@gardens4thesoul.com Associate Member Director John Hernandez El Dorado Communications, Inc. (626) eldoradojrh@yahoo.com Co-Director of Chapter Presidents Council (North) Tim Hendricks, CLT Cagwin & Dorward (415) tim.hendricks@cagwin.com Co-Director of Chapter Presidents Council (South) Steve Beckstrom Tierra Verde Landscape, Inc. (714) steveb@tierraverdelandscape.com Executive Director Sandra Giarde CLCA Headquarters 1491 River Park Dr, Ste 100 Sacramento, CA (916) sandragiarde@clca.org Andrew Tuckman John David, CLT Kelly Shaeffer Nikos Lynch Tom Reily Pete Gluhaich Steve McDonald, CLT-C Christopher Elliott, CLT Paul Iwanaga Jerry Allison Patty Dunks Brian Bisnett 1988 John Battaglia 1987 Irving K. Tamura John David, CLT 1984 James Mendleski 1983 Roy Pina 1982 Craig E. Rogers Ron Mendleski 1979 George Depesco 1978 John Brauns J. Chris McIntyre 1975 Don Ross 1974 Ray Sumida 1973 Henry Yaminishi