Refreshing Your Australian Repertoire: how to mix exciting and appropriate Australian native plants in Bay Area gardens. Presented by The Garden Conservancy and The Ruth Bancroft Garden. Cosponsored by Pacific Horticulture magazine.

Full-day Friday Seminar: 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Civic Arts Education Center, Shadelands Campus, Walnut Creek
Seminar will be followed by a private garden visit and reception at The Ruth Bancroft Garden

Half-day Study Tour on Saturday: 8:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Martinez/Berkeley and points in between.

Australians, Part I Speakers include:

• Randy Baldwin, horticulturist, San Marcos Growers, Santa Barbara
• Hank Jenkins, garden designer/horticulturist, Berkeley
• Dr. Glenn Keator, botanist/author, Berkeley
• Dr. Matt Ritter, biologist/professor, California Polytechnic State University, Leaning Pine Arboretum, San Luis Obispo
• Bernard Trainor, landscape designer/an Aussie himself! Pacific Grove
  

This seminar has been rescheduled from May 2009. Please see July 11-12 for information about The Australians, Part II.

Rainwater Harvesting for Landscape Professionals

Offer your clients the benefits of rainwater harvesting:

• Secure a reliable water source
• Find freedom from rising water rates
• Store water for emergencies
• Recharge aquifers
• Retain stormwater on site.

Speaker: Bobby Markowitz, Landscape Architect, of EarthCraft Landscape Design.

Session includes an overview of rainwater harvesting, determining a water budget for the site, costs & comparisons of different systems, practical installation specifics, and planting strategies.  Vendors of rainwater harvesting products will show their systems.  Snacks & drinks provided; BYOC (bring your own cup!).

Registration begins at 8:30 AM. 

Kenwood Permaculture will host two garden workshops on November 7.

Permaculture Principles Workshop. 9:00 AM-12:30 PM. This workshop will cover the foundational principles and design concepts of permaculture. Permaculture is an ecological design approach that helps you live lightly on the land and reduce your carbon footprint. During the garden tour you'll immerse yourself in the colors and aromas of food forests, habitat ponds, a rooftop herb garden, a grape-draped gazebo and keyhole annual veggie beds. A soil building technique called sheet mulching will also be demonstrated.

Understanding Edibles Workshop. 1:30PM to 5:00PM During this workshop you will learn to garden with edible plants. This workshop is a perfect match for anyone who would like to launch an edible landscape or permaculture garden. Not sure when to harvest your pears? Are there any attractive, edible ground-covers? Which edible vine is best for over a patio? Which fruiting shrubs and trees need cross-pollinating partners? When and how should I prune my blackberries? This workshop answers these questions and much more.

Both workshops are taught by Karen Boness of Wild Willow Landscape Design. Sign up for both workshops and take $10 off the total price. See additional info link for registration information.

• Are you constantly struggling to do everything yourself?
• Are you tired of trying to master or just keep up with your bookkeeping, tax preparation, marketing, website management, office organization and general business administration?
• Are you unsure of how you could let someone else in to your solo operation? 
  

Well, why not Take Your Business to the Next Level by Building a Small Business Support Team.  Come and join our panel discussion on the many ways that your small business can improve productivity without actually hiring employees. Our guest speaker will be Nina Feldman of Nina Feldman Connections (www.ninafeldman.com), a referral network of freelance virtual assistant & technology consulting services. 

Nina is a veteran of 28 years of office support service ownership.  She acts as a frequent consultant to small business owners and individuals on running a smooth and successful business or home office.  She also assists her husband, Chris Grampp, in his practice as a landscape architect and instructor of landscape design at Merritt College. Voted Member of the Year in 2001 by the members of the Association of Business Support Services (ABSSI), Nina currently moderates several online business support listservs.

Nina is known as the “person to call when you’re stumped” as to where to find all kinds of office support services, including bookkeepers, organizers, web designers and computer repair technicians.   She published a resource book in the ‘90s called How to Run a Successful Homebased Word Processing/Desktop Publishing Business—which sold over 2,000 copies—and numerous articles in Industry Focus magazine and at Business Know-How.com.

Grey Water Irrigation for Drought Times, with guest speakers Sherri Osaka and Deva Luna.

Learn how you can irrigate even during water shortages by using grey water. In August 2009, the state plumbing code was modified to make it easier to install a grey water systems. Learn about these new changes, what grey water is, how to use it safely in your garden, which types of grey water systems are available, from home-grown to professionally designed and installed.

Sherri Osaka is a landscape architect and owner of Sustainable Landscape Designs, co-founder of the Sustainable Landscape Roundtable and a director of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. Deva Luna is a certified grey water installer, landscape designer, and horticulturist for EarthCare Landscaping, a lifetime master gardener, gardening instructor, and coordinator of the Santa Clara Teaching Garden.