Search Results for: label/appropriate%20technology/2010/06/the-urban-homestead/2011/04/making-it

870 results

The Manzanita Miracle, or, why you should love native plants if you live in a dry climate

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Gardening, Native Plants
6 Comments
...the other is “Los Angeles is a desert, so I’m planting cactus.” Neither is appropriate. In Los Angeles, a lawn needs about 50 inches of water a year to stay green–and it usually gets twice that much–up to 100 inches. Compare that to manzanita’s 4 inches. Cactus doesn’t need much water, true, but we are not a desert–yet. We are in the process of desertification, yes, which is not a good thing. At the end of this road, we don’t end up in a dreamy Ge...

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Three California Natives that Double as Culinary Herbs

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Gardening
5 Comments
...agine if all our residential, government and commercial spaces had climate appropriate landscaping? Native insects, birds and other critters would explode in population. It would be a paradise. It would also be a huge culinary resource. Grow these plants in your garden and you can dodge the controversies of foraging in the wild. Towards that end, I thought I’d look at three easy to grow California natives that look great in a garden and double as...

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Our New Linoleum Floor

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Design
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...by Forbo. We returned to this material for two reasons: it’s historically appropriate for our 98 year old house and we like the more muted and natural colors of Frobo’s linoleum line. And we also found out that the kitchen floor of the Gamble House was recently redone with Forbo linoleum. “Linoleum” has become a generic term associated with all kinds of sheet flooring materials, but real linoleum refers to a product made with solidified linseed o...

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Irving Gill: the Greatest Architect You’ve Never Heard Of

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Design
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...od the Mediterranean climate of Southern California and designed buildings appropriate to the climate. I don’t know why we don’t have more courtyards like this one designed by Gill. He pioneered concrete tilt-up construction and was a master of the multi-unit bungalow court. Most of all I think he understood form and proportion. That’s how you can spot his elegant buildings. If one were to write the Southern California version of William Morris’ N...

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How to Garden With California Natives: Lessons from the 2016 Theodore Payne Garden Tour

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Garden Design, Gardening
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...ing a residential garden in California: natives look best when grouped and appropriately spaced into a mass that mimics the density of native chaparral. Spacing can be tricky. You have to pay attention to nursery labels and not plant too far apart or too close together. Not that plants always perform predictably. You have to go back and edit: fill gaps in or take stuff out. The best gardens on the tour got the massing right like the Hessing/Bonfig...

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