Coner Boaen Promoted to Maintenance Manager

Coner Boaen Promoted to Maintenance Manager

It was 2018 when we first introduced Coner Boaen to you. He had recently joined Madrone Landscape as a service technician and was running his own crew as a project manager for our construction team.

Fast forward three years and we’re pleased to announce Coner’s promotion to maintenance manager.

“It’s extremely gratifying to move Coner into a position of leadership,” says Rick Mathews, Madrone Landscape owner and founder. “Coner is known for his quality of work, communication, and professionalism.” Our clients appreciate his in-depth knowledge culled from 18 years in the landscaping service and construction industry.

As manager of our maintenance department, Coner focuses on client care and sustainable maintenance. Madrone has long been proud to go beyond simple mow and blow services, a philosophy Coner embraces. “From our Weekly Maintenance or Garden Detail Maintenance services to our Healthy Gardens option, Madrone focuses on plant health, aesthetics, and the effective use of water,” explains Coner.

A key to reliable service is the skillful supervision and training of our expert crews. A natural mentor, Coner regularly finds opportunities to train and educate his team on landscape maintenance practices and procedures as well as client service skills. “Just as every garden is different, every client has their own unique expectations for their garden and how they work with us. Our services deliver what an individual property or garden needs when it needs it.”

Learn more about our maintenance services. For more details, contact us at [email protected] or (805) 466-6263.

Partnership with One Cool Earth: Updating Atascadero Outdoor Classrooms

Partnership with One Cool Earth: Updating Atascadero Outdoor Classrooms

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.

 

Fire Safe Landscaping at the Mid-State Fair

Fire Safe Landscaping at the Mid-State Fair

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!

People Love Us on Yelp!

People Love Us on Yelp!

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.

Newly Built: Atascadero Woodland Retreat

Newly Built: Atascadero Woodland Retreat

Some of our projects are intended for broader appreciation and aesthetics, while others are much more personalized. The Atascadero Woodland Retreat project was specifically catered to a more familial and hands-on finish with the client involved every step of the way.

Landscapes as a whole are meant to be actively enjoyed and cared for, which made this particular client’s requests exciting for us. This entire project was built upon the desire for an intimate space meant for interaction. With kids, pets, and the personalized intent of the space, we made sure that this landscape was one this family could make their own. Some of the design and construction leaned toward the traditional: paved paths, a large and intricate deck installation around their beautiful oak trees and fencing to keep kids and pets safe. But some of the project was quite innovative: rather than building out the collective vision entirely on our own, we provided planters with prepped soil and designated spaces for the clients’ own contributions and touches to the landscape.

This project required a lot of collaboration between the client, designer, and installation team, which in turn brought out the strengths of our design-build services. Thanks to the flexibility and easy communication created by our process, we were able to make well-informed design changes on-the-fly with the end result aligning with the client’s vision.

On the Boards: Templeton Vineyard Residence

On the Boards: Templeton Vineyard Residence

Landscaping is a living art that is first and foremost rooted in the natural canvases we are given. With the Templeton Vineyard Residence’s hilltop placement, we worked with sprawling views and gorgeous stone façades. Our job was to complement and balance those elements, bringing in texture and color to emphasize the natural landscape without blocking its stunning panorama.

Landscaping is a living art that is first and foremost rooted in the natural canvases we are given. With the Templeton Vineyard Residence’s hilltop placement, we worked with sprawling views and gorgeous stone façades. Our job was to complement and balance those elements, bringing in texture and color to emphasize the natural landscape without blocking its stunning panorama.

 For this project, we installed planting, irrigation, and lighting, all of which had to be orchestrated to complement the location. With its unique location and design style—contemporary southern estate— we were able to use a different plant palette than what is ordinarily seen in North County.

Through strategic plant selection and placement, we aimed to soften some of the harder lines from the built structures without covering up the gorgeous natural stone façade. We placed some trees to frame views and used others in procession, drawing the eye across the landscape. Masses of short, flowering plants were placed before the view to the vineyard, adding color and interest to the foreground without blocking or detracting from the view. This vibrant swath of planting makes an eye-catching display, as the subtle, textural variations, tonal color changes, and seasonal interests create a softer effect that enhances the vista.

The home was designed by Isaman Design Inc.
General Contracting by Mark Sullivan.