CSUN-al Gardening Series Tackles Water-Wise Gardening
A Mexican tulip poppy, Hunnemania fumariifolia.
With the entire state of California in moderate to exceptional drought conditions, municipalities are regulating the use of water for landscaping.
Water restrictions, heavy fines and incentive programs are all ways of encouraging less water usage. Another approach is to remove or reduce a thirsty lawn and replace it with California-friendly, water-wise landscaping.
The next session of the CSUN-al Gardening Series on Saturday, Nov. 22, at California State University, Northridge, will offer homeowners tips on how to maintain an attractive garden using drought-tolerant plants. Garden designer Stephen Baldonado will share his insight on replacing the resource-needy lawn with water-wise landscaping.
“California’s extended drought shows no sign of ending,” said Brenda Kanno, manager of CSUN’s Botanic Garden, which hosts the CSUN-al Gardening Series. “With close to 50 percent of residential water being used for landscape watering, it makes sense to convert the water-needy lawn into an attractive yet water-wise planting.”
Baldonado has operated his own garden design business, I Garden, for more than five years. He also has worked at New York’s Central Park and the New York Botanical Garden. He offers a full schedule of presentations at local garden events and has assisted Scott Daigre with Tomatomania events for the past seven years.
Registration for the free class is required. Email botanicgarden@csun.edu to request a space in the class or for more information. Driving and parking instructions, as well as the class meeting location, will be sent upon registration.
CSUN’s Botanic Garden is operated by the university’s Department of Biology and serves as a field site for botany, entomology, photography, painting and other classes. In addition to outdoor landscapes and natural botanic environments, the garden features greenhouses where noteworthy botanical specimens are grown. The garden is open to the community.
Visit the website www.csun.edu/botanicgarden/ for more information.
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