(Watershed wise landscape with style) 

This project was do in collaboration with my friends at Sweetwater Collaborative.  Sweetwater Collaborative is a non-profit organization that work to educate the public about water wise and regenerative landscape practices.  

Funded by the City of Santa Barbara as well as several other business and agency Sweetwater Collaborative and I worked to installed this project with the help of volunteers.  In a hands-on work shop we explained principles of water wise gardening and demonstrated best practices when installing sustainable landscapes.

When the owner of this property decided to build an ADU (Auxiliary Dwelling Unit) in their back yard they expanded the roof line of their property.  In order to be in compliance with new California building the project required that a portion of the rain water coming onto this property must be stored on the property.  That is where we came into help.  Directing down spouts into basins, or swales in the soil is one of the most efficient and cost-effective way to capture and store rain water on a piece of land. 

Calculations were done to determine the volume of water coming of the roof line in a given rain event from the ADU.  The calculations go:  square footage of roofline times .62 times 1, for 1” of rain. That total gives you the amount of water in gallons.  Then divide the number in gallons by 7.48 find the cubic feet in that number of gallons.  Then a basin with that holding capacity was designed into the landscape.  Then the plantings were chosen.  In this project we went with an 100% California Native Plant palette. We did this to help educate people about all the benefits of growing natives and to show case some of the beautiful plants native to Southern California. Sothern California is how to some of the greatest biodiversity of plants in the world. Native Plants are best adapted to thrive conditions from which they are natively found plus they help provide forage to the native fauna such as birds and insects. 

Now the tenants in the ADU can look out and enjoy this colorful garden without the home owners needing to pay a huge water bill.