You can leave the lights on... Really

Let's talk about lighting.
No, not the icicle lights, electric reindeer or 6 foot tall inflatable snow globes (all the rage this year around here) that come out as holiday decorations.

I'm talking about year-round outdoor lights. Landscape lighting if you prefer.

I tend to notice peoples' yards as I drive around, especially at night when the lights are on. I see so many tacky looking (badly executed?) lighting jobs out there... It's hard to know where to begin...

Solar lights-
Yes, I can understand the motivations, for some it's just about saving money and effort. For others, it's about saving energy and making a statement... like driving a hybrid car (probably applies more to the more expensive solar lights that are sold from catalogs.)

In either case when I drive by and see those dimly glowing bluish or yellowish LED solar pathlights it usually makes me exclaim out loud.... "What the heck were they thinking?!?"

Do-it-yourself low voltage kit lights-
It's the typical Big Box store light kit... the ones that so often get lined up to look like miniature runway lights... a little brighter usually than the solar lights, but how long will they hold up to the elements?

The fixtures are constructed of cheaply made plastic and thin metals with poorly applied paint finishes... and they use pierce point connectors that set up corrosion points all along the already undersized cable, assuring dim lights or failed service...

Can you say "planned obsolescence?" These kinds of systems are not designed for the long haul. You'll be lucky to get three to five years.

So, what are the alternatives?
Well, I've been designing and installing professional grade outdoor lighting systems since 1989. I actually have used materials supplied by a number of different companies over the years, but have chosen to affiliate myself with the industry's founder and leading innovator, Nightscaping.

As a Nightscaping Registered Contractor, I use mostly Nightscaping fixtures and Powercenters (transformers.)

My reasons for picking Nightscaping are simple: well designed reliable products, good contractor support, and the best-backed warranty I've ever run across in my 17 years as a landscape contractor. (How about a lifetime warranty on Nightscaping Powercenters, transferable to the next owner?) Nightscaping also offers a great selection of timers and other control devices.
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Some contractors call Nightscaping's way of doing business "mass customization". Not only can I order fixtures in a wide range of materials and finishes, including raw copper, solid brass and stainless steel, but I can order from a wide array of mounting options, glare shields, and other accessories, and even get the factory to powdercoat my fixtures with a custom color, making every job I install a unique work of lighting art.


What does quality lighting cost to install?
I won't lie and tell you it's cheap. I will tell you that it's a good value, especially when you consider all the benefits (safety, security and aesthetics) over the life of the system. Go to the www.sprinklersplus.com website and contact me there for a quote.

Then what does it cost to run?
Well, what are you paying for electricity? At $0.15 per Kilowatt/ hour that means a 250 Watt transformer could run for 4 hours for $0.15. The same 250 Watts could run one of those bright ugly industrial lights that people sometimes mount over the driveway... or four 60 Watt porch light bulbs... or it could power 10 to 20 very nicely designed incandescent or halogen lamp pathlights... or 10 or 12 uplights or downlights... depending on how you use them.

In other words, a well lighted front yard could cost you under $10 per month to run. In the grand scheme of things that's very little.

Sprinklers...ON or OFF right NOW?

We're in a transitional season, from the dry to the wet, but a high pressure ridge has kept the rain away, high temperature records for November are being broken this week, and it looks like there's no precipitation in our immediate future.

"Shorts weather" in November?
Yep. And a t-shirt and sandals even. And don't forget the shades....how's a Thanksgiving picnic at the beach sound?

Does it mean we're at the beginning of a new drought?
I don't know yet. We'll have to wait and see. Droughts are a part of the natural cycle where we live.

So, should I be watering?
Even though it feels like September in the middle of the day, we have fewer hours of daylight, a lower sun angle, and cooler nighttime temperatures. In other words, plants' water needs are still lower than mid Summer or early Fall. The best thing to do is check the soil. You'll probably find that it's damp and cool.

Remember that when we water we are replacing water lost to evapotranspiration, called ET for short. ET is a measure of the combined effects of wind, temperature, humidity, day length and local factors such as the shade pattern of a tree or building on the landscape at different times of the year. Farmers have benefited from the collection of ET data for years.

Landscape ET calculations and the adjustments one makes to irrigation scheduling are not as simple because the formula includes something called the "crop coefficient", which basically refers to the water needs of a particular species of plant.

A lot of agriculture is monoculture, or one kind of crop over a large planted area. Most landscapes are a mix of lots of plants. It makes a big difference.

So, what kind of watering do you recommend?
Well, as I mentioned a few days ago, I still water once per week through the Winter, unless we have several days of rain in a row. I'd water less time for areas with a northern or eastern exposure, and more on the south and west sides. I'd also make sure that plants under eaves or other obstructions to rain falling, and plants in containers made of materials that dry faster (like terra cotta or wood) get sufficient amounts of water.

And as far as the difference between sprinklers vs. drip irrigation goes, I like them both, depending on the situation.

And maybe do a rain dance.

And check out this Rainbird page on water conservation tips, just in case this really is the start of a drought.

Why did the cable cross UNDER the sidewalk?

To get to the other side of course.

Actually, I'm going to deal here with the how and not the why.
Someone posted a question recently. Anonymous asked:

Hey Gregg, How do you get a wire under a sidewalk?


Now, I'm thinking this might be kind of an inside joke, because an online discussion group in which I participate with fellow outdoor lighting designers and contractors has gone through at least three cycles of posts regarding this topic in the 5 years I've been participating.

So Kevin, Mike or John.. or maybe James... you'd better pay attention :-)

But assuming this is a serious question, posed by someone with a dire need to know, II'll share what I can.

First, why do you want to get the wire to one side of the sidewalk to the other? And is this a public sidewalk or a walk within the boundaries of your own or a paying customer's property?

Whether pipes or wires, you have two choices to get from one side to the other: boring or cutting. I don't advise cutting through public sidewalks, but boring under one is fine.

Be careful about utility locations. The best thing to do is to call Underground Service Alert at least 2 days ahead of time and let them take care of marking sewer, water, gas and electrical lines before any digging, boring or trenching.

When you're dealing with walks on private property you might have more options. Are there wooden boards or bricks set in the concrete at intervals as expansion joints? Are they old, loose or rotten, or could they otherwise stand to be removed and replaced? If so you've just saved yourself some work.

Getting a pipe or wire under a sidewalk is one of those things where various individuals come up with methods that suit them and then stick with them... and hold strong opinions about why their method is best.

I've seen or heard of everything from a sledge hammer and a capped piece of galvanized pipe, to electric or gas powered drilling machines, to pneumatic piston-like devices that punch through the soil. Frankly, for a sidewalk, I think simpler is better.

The simplest method is a combination of a piece of pipe, (a couple of feet longer than your bore), with a tapered nozzle at one end and female hose fitting at the other. I like a ball valve or gate valve on the hose fitting end of the pipe too. All that's involved is digging an approach trench longer than your pipe, and deep enough that your pipe is level while passing under the walk. Then attach a hose, turn on the water, and start poking the nozzle end of that pipe in the direction you want.

Did I mention you should have on clothes that you don't mind getting muddy? And waterproof footwear... and maybe knee pads and gloves too? And how about a towel for when that mud splashes back in your face when you're trying to position the nozzle with the valve opened up?

After you've done this once it's pretty simple. You get a feel for when to hold the pipe still and let a little water do the work, vs. how hard or fast you need to push. Of course soils will vary. Some are rocky, some are more sand, silt or clay. I've never run into one I couldn't bore through, but sometimes it takes a little more time and effort.

Rocks, roots and other unforeseen obstacles can be problematic. You may have to change course or start a new bore if you run into something too solid.

Once the pipe has passed through, tie a heavy string line to the nozzle end and pass it back through the bore you made. Then use that line to pull your pipe or cable back through the bore. It's easier than it sounds.

And if you get in over your head (let's hope you don't have to go that deep) then just give us a call.

BTW, the very best way to get a wire or pipe under a walk is to plan ahead and install a large diameter sleeve before the concrete is poured (3" PVC drain pipe works well) and let it extend 12" beyond the forms on each side. You can always shorten it later. The more sleeves the better. Cap them and mark them with flags or tape for future needs.

A sleeve allows some flexing of the pipe or cable inside, during an earthquake for instance, or from expansion or contraction due to temperature changes.

Bugged?

What's bugging you? No, not like in bothering, but like what's crawling around your garden, and is it doing harm or good?

I used to be a licensed pest control operator as part of my landscape maintenance business, but I gave it up because I didn't like to spray. Around my own home I take a "live and let live" approach most of the time. Even when it comes to spiders.

Now, I don't know if it's something innate, or if we are conditioned by society somehow, but I've discovered recently that there are a lot more people who are afraid of spiders than I knew.

I have had a lot of close encounters with insects and arachnids. Recently I decided to consult an expert about spiders to try to identify a particular kind seem to inhabit dark, damp valve boxes. I suspected they might be dangerous, and I wanted to learn more about them.

After doing a Google search, I ran across the name of Stephen Lew. I contacted him (stevelew@nature.berkeley.edu) and although a busy guy, he was happy to answer some of my questions.


It turns out that the spider in question, though kind of scary looking, and slightly resembling a Black Widow (to the uninitiated eye) is relatively harmless. Steatoda grossa, also known as the False Black Widow or the Cupboard Spider (depending on where you live) is quite common.

This spider is brown to purplish brown when I've seen it, but it varies a little in appearance around the world. It's found in coastal areas of the U.S. and thought to have originated in the Mediterranean, and spread via cargo ships to most of the world.

It can bite, but prefers to be left alone. I've found that if I open a valve box and break up the webs with a stick or long screwdriver, and then wait 5 minutes that they'll go away for a while and aren't a problem.


As far as insect ID, the following sites are really great. You can send in your digital picture and get feedback from lots of folks, and some are trained experts...

http://bugguide.net

http://whatsthatbug.com/

Born to be wild...

I'm amazed sometimes at the amount of wildlife I encounter on a fairly regular basis. Because some of the areas where I work are still on the wild fringes of suburbia it's not uncommon to see deer, raccoons, skunks... or to hear stories from customers about bobcats and even mountain lions.

I see lots of birds, from hummingbirds doing their aerial mating dances and swoops, to jays landing on my parked truck to check it out and quail scurrying away and ducking for cover. I even saw a great blue heron not long ago near a slow moving and deep section of Coyote Creek that ran along the backyard of a job.

Then there are the more unusual encounters... a couple of weeks back while working on a lighting job in Los Altos I was up a ladder at the edge of a roof when I heard a racket in the nearby pine trees. A solitary agitated squirrel was scrambling around the trunk in a spiral and then out to the end of a branch and back again... Then I saw it.. the wings and head were unmistakable.. a redtail hawk perched on the end of the branch...

I'd never seen an interaction like this before. The squirrel charged at the surprised hawk with a ferocious intensity. Twice the squirrel charged, and the hawk, a little awkward in the confined space between branches, seemed out of its element. Unable to maneuver, all it could do was spread its wings. The squirrel, undaunted, charged a third time and drove the hawk away.

It's cool to run into these animals so close to so many people.

What passes for Winter

Hello again from the Santa Clara Valley, commonly referred to these days as Silicon Valley.

We experience a mild Mediterranean climate here, and seasons..... well, some would say we have just two, the wet season and the dry season. The native plants are adapted to that cycle, some going nearly dormant in the summer months... but more about that in a future post.

It's not feeling all that wintry yet, but the leaves on the Chinese Pistache in the front yard have finished turning. They vary from fiery orange to deep red, and half have blown down already. Ginkgos I saw on a jobsite yesterday were not done turning yellow.

Here's a nice Fall foliage shot of Chinese Tallow or Sapium sebiferum. It does well here.


Funny how all the trees with impressive fall color seem to be transplants to California. In fact the only native tree I can think of around here with decent fall color is the Big Leaf Maple, Acer macrophylla. No photo of that one either, but I'll try to post one soon. Some nice examples can be seen up Highway 9 above Saratoga until the rain knocks the leaves off, or take a hike through parts of Sanborn or Castle Rock parks.

So, the beginning of the local wet season means the end of our watering season, and as more rain appears, it's time to reduce or shut down sprinklers. I tend to run my sprinklers through the winter for a short time once per week, at least until I'm convinced that the wet season has really arrived, and especially in areas like under the eaves where plants don't get a "direct hit" from the rain.

Rain sensors can do a good job of cutting water waste. They are essentially electronic rain gauges that connect to your sprinkler timer and shut it down when after a rainstorm. There are even wireless models. I've found no difference in the reliability of rain sensors from Hunter or Rainbird. Both seem to work well.

Rain sensors are especially useful in the Fall and Spring, as temperatures begin to change and rainfall is still intermittent. Set the sprinklers expecting no rain, and if and when it rain falls, the sensor takes over and prevents watering until it dries out again.

BTW, check out the links to the right of this page. I added them yesterday. One each to my website, Nightscaping outdoor lighting, Rainbird and Hunter sprinklers, and the California Contractors State License Board.

I hope you find them useful.

Well I guess it's about time

I've heard about blogging for a while, and though I get around to reading some now and again, it didn't really dawn on me until just a few days ago that it might be a good communication tool for my business. I thought about it.... maybe I could write tips and suggestions, or answer questions, post pictures, or share some observations relevant to the work I do.

So this is it. Today I begin what I imagine will be a sporadic account of my working life.... and perhaps, as I publicize this through my website and emails to friends, family, business clients and associates, it just might become an interactive tool where someone might find an answer or, at least pose an interesting question.

If you happen to just run across this blog randomly, you can find out more about the services I offer at www.sprinklersplus.com.