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!
Rich History and Old-Stock Mission Vines in Our Backyard
Located on 86 acres of the former Milpitas unit of the Hearst Ranch, the Mission San Antonio de Padua features a large church, a museum, and a gift shop. In 2020, as part of the Mission’s ongoing restoration project, we joined the team to complete a renovation of the Mission’s courtyard garden. Working together with Joan Steele, administrator, we were able to create a beautiful garden designed to showcase the many native plants used by the Salinan Tribe. Although the garden is new, these grounds are rich in history (this year marks its 250th anniversary!), and we asked Joan to highlight one of the few original features remaining in the courtyard garden: its original grape stock.
Heritage grape stock cutting purchased through the Mission San Antonio gift shop.
“The cuttings would have been brought either from Mallorca, Spain, in the 1700s and/or from the area around what is now Mexico City,” explains Joan.
The Franciscans knew they would need to plant a vineyard in the New World to have wine for daily Mass. Following construction of the first irrigation system (aqueduct) in California, the Franciscans and the Native Salinan Tribal Members planted the first vineyard on the Central Coast.
They built an adobe wall around the vineyard to keep the animals out and built a house for the “vineyardist” within the vineyard. As the vines flourished, the Franciscans built two large wine vats and a wine cellar (one of the vats and the wine cellar are still visible today as part of the Mission museum). By 1841 there were 4,000 vines in the vineyard.
The Mexican government secularized the Mission in 1834. It was temporarily abandoned in 1844 and the vineyard continued to decline. Prior to his death in 1882, it is believed Fr. Dorothea Ambris moved some of the vines from the declining vineyard and replanted them inside the Mission courtyard and out in front of the Mission to better care for them.
Joan shares that in 2011 the Mission sent samples of these vines to UC Davis for DNA testing. It was discovered that the grapes are “Mission” grapes – also known as Criolla Chica in South America and Pais in France. While this varietal is no longer available in Spain, this type of grape stock is still used widely in Central and South America to produce the local table wines.
“We are very proud of our historic vines, still producing wonderful annual harvests,” Joan notes. “It is one of our long-range goals to reestablish the vineyard at the Mission, using cuttings from the original vines. We hope to engage the cooperation of local university students to rebuild the adobe walls around the vineyard and grow the historic vines for many years to come.”
Currently, the Mission has some cuttings available through the gift shop when it is open on the weekends. Visit www.missionsanantonio.net to keep abreast of the changing schedule due to COVID restrictions and staffing requirements.
How long does it take for a landscape to mature? That depends on several factors, including your plant hardiness zone, irrigation, and the size of plants you have installed.
Madrone constructed this award-winning Cayucos landscape just two years ago, and here is how it looks today.
The entry courtyard features a one-of-a-kind water wall that collects and cascades into a large reflection pool, stimulating all the senses.
The diagonally-set pavers featuring locally sourced rock mulch insets provide a striking accent that helps tie the contemporary with the surrounding landscape.
Madrone used native turf substitute carex praegracillis in place of a traditional lawn. To conserve water and reduce environmental impact, we installed sub-surface drip irrigation.
We installed a ‘smart’ irrigation to conserve water further, drawing from satellite weather information to adjust run times automatically.
Solar panels supply the low voltage LED lighting and all off-grid electrical.
This project’s unique details and sustainable features made it both fun and gratifying to work on at every phase.
With five acres of beautiful blank canvas, this private residential landscape presents an expansive front yard and a nestled tier design, providing a balance to the home’s modern architecture and the surrounding Atascadero hills.
Focusing on the acre immediately surrounding the home, Madrone created a grand main entrance and separate outdoor “rooms” with a cohesive rustic modern style. A main path leads to a wide staircase and covered patio, providing a majestic entry experience with magnificent views. Separate hot tub and fire pit areas rest below the main level, providing spaces for relaxing during the warm North County evenings. Around the back of the house, a private courtyard provides a more sheltered gathering space with outdoor kitchen, deck, and water feature, perfect for entertaining or simply enjoying a cup of coffee on a chilly Atascadero morning.
The plant palette, featuring Palo Verde trees and Agave, relies on textures and form to reveal the variety among the greens, yellows, blue-greens and whites. Modern elements such as straight lines, evenly spaced plants, concrete, and corten steel blend with natural materials such as gravel paths, boulders, and masses of flowing grasses to make each space separate and unique while still bringing everything together as a whole.
Robert Rojas, the owner of Rojas Enterprise, is a licensed contractor with over 20 years of experience. Primarily offering concrete and masonry services, Rojas assists Madrone Landscape with hardscaping. He and his team can be relied upon to enhance projects with everything from decorative patios and walkways to custom project features, outdoor fireplaces, and sound structural retaining walls. By incorporating stains, polishes, and decorative stamps, Rojas’ work is much more than just concrete and masonry.
The Rojas team has been working with Madrone Landscape for over 15 years, where they have completed over 200 projects together. The longevity of the partnership can be mainly attributed to both companies’ dedication to client satisfaction and integrity of their workmanship. “The most important thing to me is making sure the client is happy with the final product,” explained Rojas. He also credited the long working relationship to Madrone’s professionalism. “The team at Madrone is easy to work with, not only because they are good people, but because they provide clear direction with their procedures and schedules.”
Out of all of the projects that the Rojas/Madrone teams have collaborated on, Rojas is particularly proud of a project where they created a stamped, circular pad for a fireplace. Its compass feature was skillfully cut into the concrete and stained to enhance the features.
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.
Our Californian Central Coast climate is unique and particular, shaped by drought-tolerant native plants and dry but beautiful weather. As professional landscapers, we understand the importance of planting flora that can live sustainably in our soils. Here, sustainability means many things—keeping water bills down, plants alive without fuss and unnecessary labor, the native landscape uninterrupted by any invasive species, and more—and does not undermine the beautification of your outdoor spaces.
This timeless video is just as relevant for central coast landscapes today as it was when it was filmed in 2009. Created by the Templeton Community Services District in cooperation with the SLO County Partners in Water Conservation, this ten-minute video walks through eight topics you should consider when creating a sustainable landscape. Hosted by Kate Dore and our own Rick Mathews.
Eight factors to consider when creating a sustainable landscape:
Planning and Design—know your site inside and out to ensure you start off on the right foot
Soil Type—before deciding on your perfect plant palette, make sure you know what your soil can sustain
Plant Selection—set your heart on the beautiful variety of native and Mediterranean plants that grow best in our area
Limited Turf Areas—a costly and management-heavy asset, it’s best to design for only as much turf as you need for your practical enjoyment
Mulching—organic mulch is the perfect solution for topsoil protection, temperature regulation, and weed prevention
Efficient Irrigation—an essential component to preventing time-intensive care and water waste, make sure your irrigation system is efficient
Hardscape Areas—these can be designed with sustainable and water-wise materials as well as potted plants and container gardens to beautify your walls and walkways
Maintenance—reduce maintenance time and costs by considering the speed of your plants’ growth, the cost of any new maintenance tools, replanting needs, and any possibility for your plants damaging your landscape if left unchecked
If you’ve read about our landscape maintenance services, you know that we assert that “It has been estimated that 80% of the total cost of a garden over a 20-year lifespan is for maintenance. That means 20% for design and construction. Sustainable maintenance practices help to greatly reduce maintenance costs.”
Some folks are surprised by that number. Here’s how we break it down.
Obviously, the cost of maintenance is different for every property, based on the scopes of the landscape, the type of tasks involved, and the level of detail for the work. Add the variable cost of labor and any renovations and other changes needed over the 20-year lifespan and you have a complicated equation.
The 80% number we use (20/80 ratio) comes specifically from the popular DIY book, “Sustainable Landscaping For Dummies,” by visionary landscape architect, Owen Dell. Despite the goofy series title, it is an excellent source of information on sustainable landscape issues and solutions.
Although that book was published in 2009, the 20% construction vs. 80% maintenance figure has been used at least since the early 1990s when our owner and founder, Rick Mathews, first heard it. Is the ratio still valid? Roughly/generally/approximately, yes. Based on our experience and using numbers from landscape projects we constructed as well as maintain, we found that the 20/80 ratio was the low end of the maintenance cost range.
What should be stressed is that landscapes that use a sustainable approach are, by definition, less expensive over time. Whether it’s less gas (and noise!) for power garden equipment and less polluting chemicals for fertilizing and pest control, a sustainable approach reduces those costs and environmental impacts. Sustainability is a major goal of good landscape design and construction, and hopefully means less time is spent tending to more needy garden elements like large lawns, high-maintenance and low-durability hardscape elements, and poorly chosen and out-of-scale trees, shrubs, and ground covers.
Want to learn more about sustainable landscape maintenance? Give us a call! (805) 466-6263
Enjoying a lifetime of Jazz, Blues and R&B with Central Coast music lovers via public radio KCBX (above).
How long have you worked at Madrone?
Many decades now. Maybe right after returning from the Torre de Cala Pi job, on Mallorca (see photo below). Talk about a stacked-stone project! Blisters!
What led you to start Madrone Landscape?
The discovery of native plants for landscape use, combined with emphasizing environmental stewardship and sustainability, inspired me to visualize a company that tries to heal the scars of development. We moved to SLO County for Cal Poly and the opportunities to start our lives and family in a beautiful region with the potential to make a living, but without the crowding, smog, commutes, etc. we had grown up with. I already had a pickup truck, so all I needed was a shovel and I was in business. What could go wrong?
Lake Park Native Garden volunteer work crew
What is your favorite thing about working at Madrone? The people of Madrone Landscape continue to inspire me more than any other single thing. Through the considerable ups and downs that have come along, our team has thrived. We have persevered and lifted each other up amazingly well. Respect is a strong value with this group, and it shows through all of our company’s core values: Teamwork, Quality, Stewardship, Service, Innovation.
What do you enjoy most about your job/specialization?
At this stage of my working career, one of the most enjoyable aspects of work is to help guide what we’re doing, individually as well as systemically, and in the process help my co-workers learn and grow.
What is your favorite Madrone project and why?
I’m sorry to use the old cliche: That’s like asking which of your children is your favorite? So many of our projects have improved the situations beyond the sum total of materials installed. We help create environments that range from functionally enabling the use of property, to nurturing people’s souls. There is a lot to like throughout the hundreds of projects we’ve worked on.
What is your favorite plant and why?
This answer will periodically change, but for the moment, I’ll pick the entire genus of Arctostaphylos, or Manzanita. There are over 100 species of Manzanitas, from 3-inch high ground covers to 30 ft. tall trees. They all evoke Western North America, my home and favorite region on the planet.
Torre de Cala Pi is an iconic defense and observation tower on the southeastern coast of the island of Mallorca (built in 1663)
What are some of your favorite hobbies outside of work?
Family, music (still a jazz host on KCBX after many years—Freedom Jazz Dance, Mondays 8pm–10pm, KCBX fm90, KCBX.org), hiking, reading, and yearning to enjoy gathering with friends, live music, and traveling soon.
Give us a fun fact about you!
I first volunteered at KCBX Public Radio (90.1 FM or KCBX.org) in the summer of 1977, and have continued hosting weekly shows and volunteering ever since.
A redesign in Paso Robles at 10,600 SF, this North County backyard landscape creates a rustic modern outdoor sanctuary—befit for its owners and the home it surrounds.
This project redesigns the entire backyard, re-envisioning every space to include custom features like a live wall, firepit, and a new outdoor kitchen and dining area. It blends historic elements and flora native to the California Central Coast with these new modern features to create a comfortable, aesthetic balance.
The design includes points of interest and focal features such as a dry creek, raised garden beds, horizontal fencing, and landscape lighting. Stately oak trees create a canopy with moonlighting over the activity areas.
With all the custom elements in this project, there have been many details and revisions to keep up with. Communication between the install crew and the design team has been increasingly important with each adjustment.
From the design-build teamwork to the inspired design, this North County landscape is a wonderful example of creating an outdoor sanctuary with varied gathering spaces that are both functional and aesthetically beautiful.
