Aug 19, 2021
Late in 2019, Madrone partnered with One Cool Earth, a non-profit organization that creates garden-based school programs. We committed crews to improve and maintain gardens at six Atascadero School District schools. Shortly after our discussion, the entire program was put on pause as schools employed health and safety measures.
As kids head back to campus this month, Madrone has been busily preparing the outdoor classroom sites. Our team worked on each garden used for One Cool Earth’s Earth Genius program, rejuvenating and preparing the sites for a new school year. From mulching and weed abatement to repairing hardscape, we spent a few days ensuring that each school can rely on a garden space that will enrich them throughout the year. One Cool Earth educators can now visit each week and rely on a revitalized garden to teach about nutrition and the environment.
Madrone and One Cool Earth share and reinforce one another’s values: giving back, stewardship, and innovation. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship.
Jul 12, 2021
Learn how to make your landscape defensible during fire season
At Madrone Landscape, we have dealt with properties in high fire danger areas for decades. There are many ways to enhance a property’s defensibility, whether through plant selection and design or irrigation and water system strategies.
Visitors to the 2021 Mid-State Fair in Paso Robles will be able to see for themselves some of these best practices at the Fire Safe Demonstration House for view from July 21st to August 1st. The model property will show strategies for living in fire-prone areas around the Central Coast, especially appropriate as fire season comes upon us.
The multi-phased project will be developed over the next couple of years, and Phase One is getting ready for this year’s Fair. After re-grading, tearing out old plants, and doing a weed abatement, Madrone transformed the space into a simple gravel landscape (one of the best options for fire safety). The open gravel area will accommodate shaded seating, a proposed “Hydration Station,” and educational messaging to help people visualize how they can keep their properties fire-safe. A future phase will feature a mobile multi-media educational exhibit, and the occasional visit by a fire truck.
This community education exhibit was created by the Fire Safe Council, spearheaded by Turko Semmes with Madrone Landscape lending assistance. Semmes and Company built the structure, demonstrating closed eaves and partial straw bale, the latter being three times more fire-resistant than the average material. Also contributing to the fire safe landscaping message is the San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden (SLOBG), whose Fire Safe Demonstration Garden can be viewed daily at the SLOBG grounds off Hwy 1 in San Luis Obipso, near Cuesta College.
Come visit the Demonstration House, a welcome respite from the hot Paso Robles temperatures, featuring shaded seating areas and the only hydration station at the Fair. Bring your water bottle and swing by for a fill-up!
Apr 1, 2021
Madrone Awarded Yelp! 2021 Honor
And that’s the amazing thing—we’ve won dozens of incredible awards from officials, regions, and authorities which identify our skills on a specialized level, but Yelp! ratings aren’t professional reviews. They’re the opinions of average folks like us and like you, and that’s what makes this so special.
Our community is deeply important to us at Madrone, so having the approval and support of our clients and neighbors is an honor, and we’re excited to display something so small as the “People Love Us on Yelp!” window cling that we received this year. We earned this award through having a significant enough number of positive reviews that we were singled out as a business of genuine quality, and we treasure every review that got us here.
This honor is for 2021, and we’ll be working hard to make our community proud every year to come. Thank you, everyone, for your support.
