Zoysia Tenuifolia FLATS is Korean Grass, just sold in flats
Tabebuia ipe- Pink Trumpet Tree/
Tabebuia ipe is short for Tabebuia impetiginosa- Pink Trumpet Tree.
There are many varieties of Tabebuia available in the United States. Impetiginosa or Ipe, for short, is our most popular. Rosea is lighter pink and moving into a completely different look is Tabebuia chrysotricha which is a vibrant yellow with a distinct look.
Do a site search for Tabebuia to see great pics of what we have available.
Ligustrum texanum- Texas Privet
Ligustrum texanum- Texas Privet
One of the best hedges available.
Dark green glossy foliage.
Pest resistent.
No root problems.
Over time it can reach 20 ft tall.
Essence of Grapefruit Repels Bugs
Essence of Grapefruit Repels Bugs
Centers for Disease Control is looking for all-natural insect repellents
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is looking for an all-natural insect repellent, and it’s found a viable candidate.
The CDC is pushing hard to develop a completely natural insect repellent made from a chemical called nootkatone, which is found in Alaska yellow cedar trees and citrus fruit, said Marc Dolan of the CDC’s vector-borne infectious diseases laboratory in Fort Collins, Colo.
Dolan says nootkatone “is nongreasy, dries very quickly, and it has a very pleasant, citrus-y grapefruit odor to it.”
He recently demonstrated its effectiveness as a mosquito repellent, rubbing some on his hand and then sticking it into a cage containing 50 hungry mosquitoes. When he holds the treated hand near mosquitoes, they try to get away in the opposite direction as fast as they can.
Even after five minutes, Dolan has no bites on his nootkatone-treated hand.
Nootkatone is also effective against ticks, and scientists think it will work against bed bugs, head lice and other insects, too.
Moreover, nootkatone is so nontoxic you could drink it. In fact, it’s already an approved food additive, officially classed as “Generally Considered Safe.” It’s also a natural ingredient in some foods.
“If you’ve had a grapefruit, you’ve consumed some nootkatone,” Dolan says, “or drank a Squirt, for instance.”
Dolan, who is leading a CDC team to develop nootkatone, says it could be put into soaps and sunscreens, so people wouldn’t have to apply a separate bug repellent.
But that’s not all — it turns out that nootkatone could be both a repellent and an environmentally friendly pesticide. That’s because it doesn’t just repel bugs — it kills them.
Kills In Seconds
Nick Panella, another CDC biologist, recently demonstrated nootkatone’s insecticidal properties by coating the inside of a jar with the chemical and then introducing some mosquitoes. Within seconds, they all started to die.
“This stuff has incredible knock-down,” Dolan says, referring to an insecticide’s ability to kill off bugs. “It kills very, very quickly, usually within a matter of about 15 seconds.”
It kills by blocking receptors on insects’ nerve cells for a neurotransmitter called octopamine. That makes the insects hyperactive. “They basically vibrate themselves to death,” Dolan says.
Humans don’t have octopamine receptors, so that may make nootkatone safe for humans, though Dolan says scientists don’t yet know whether there’s any cross-reaction between nootkatone and adrenaline receptors. Adrenaline is the human analog of insects’ octopamine.
Dolan thinks nootkatone is likely to be so nontoxic that it could be an ingredient in “the world’s first insecticidal soap.”
“If you come in from your garden, you could shower with this soap, which would not only repel ticks and mosquitoes, or ticks that may be on you,” he says, “but ticks that may be actively feeding on you, it would cause them to detach and possibly kill them.”
Environmentally Safe
Tests so far indicate that nootkatone is highly effective as an environmental insecticide, and not just against mosquitoes. “A single application of a 2 percent solution of nootkatone will control ticks for up to 42 days at greater than 97 percent efficacy,” Dolan says.
Another advantage, he says, is that nootkatone is volatile, so it doesn’t persist very long in the environment.
“Essential oils [such as nootkatone] kill bugs and then break down and are no longer active,” the CDC scientist says. “So you don’t get a lot of soil contamination. We don’t see groundwater contamination. And we don’t have a high impact on other nontarget insects that may come into the sprayed area, such as bees and butterflies.”
Finally, nootkatone works in a completely different way from other insecticides, so mosquitoes aren’t resistant to it yet — a major problem with current insecticides. The CDC hopes the chemical will be impregnated into bed nets to reduce malaria transmission in areas where the mosquito-borne disease is endemic.
The CDC owns patents on nootkatone and has licensed them to two companies — one to develop a repellent, the other to work on insecticides. The agency isn’t looking to make much money; its interest is in seeing products get to market.
Right now nootkatone is expensive — $4,000 per kilogram for highly purified food-grade material, which is used in parts-per-million amounts as a flavoring agent. Repellents and insecticides would use a higher concentration — perhaps 2 percent. But it wouldn’t need to be as purified.
Dolan says efforts are under way to find cheaper sources of nootkatone, such as waste products from the citrus and forestry industries. In addition, a different form, called nootkatol, appears to be a lower-cost alternative for repellents. “Nootkatol is just a waste product,” he says. “Right now, that’s virtually free.”
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Kuhnle
Stacked stone river rock wall-
Mortared river rock wall with cap-
Here is a perennial garden with many of the plants specified-
Here is a flagstone pathway-
Sisyrinchium striatum ‘Aunt May’ is a great variegated iris type of plant-
Sesleria heufleriana – Blue Moor Grass-
Statice-
This Dianella longifolia- Flax Lily is a nice substitution to african iris. It is more graceful and although is a newer plant for us, it seems to be less maintenance.-
As a background and a shrub that can hide the view of the roof of the neighbors home over time is the bottlebrush ‘Little John’, It has the red flowers and is a small growing shrub-
Landscape Ideas
Click on the drop down menus to get great ideas for your landscapes.
Fence Ideas Horizontal and Vertical Slats
Columnar Hedge Type Plants
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Buxus x ‘Green Mountain’- Green Mountain Boxwood
This boxwood has dense upright form, bright green leaves. Color is retained throughout winter. It holds a natural cone shape form if left unsheared and is an excellent hedge. Evergreen. Vigorous growing when young.
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Ilex crenata ‘Sky Pencil’- Sky Pencil Japanese Holly
This is a wonderfull holly if you are looking for a narrow, columnar form with dark green foliage holds that holds its color year round. Purple berries add character in the fall. Use as a vertical accent or as a privacy screen. Planted in a large container, it makes an elegant, formal appearance. Evergreen.
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Juniperus virginiana ‘Blue Arrow’- Blue Arrow Juniper
A great juniper with a tight, upright form with a bright blue foliage that stays very narrow. Use for a tall, narrow screen where space is limited. Makes a colorful addition to the garden. Evergreen.
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Thuja occidentalis ‘Hill’s Dark Green’- Hill’s Dark Green Arborvitae
Narrow, evergreen displaying dense dark green foliage. Pyramidal shape holds its foliage color throughout winter. Excellent medium to large hedge or screening plant.
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Thuja occidentalis ‘Malonyana’- Malonyana Arborvitae
Tall hedge plant. 20 to 30 ft. tall, 3 to 4 ft. wide.
Los Angeles Homeowners Must Maintain Their Own Trees
A budget shortfall may force major changes in the City of Los Angeles that could affect the maintenance of trees along the city streets and parks.
Los Angeles’ top budget analyst, Miguel Santana, is urging council members to focus on very bracing financial challenges in the years ahead which would include outsourcing landscape maintenance operations normally done by city workers.
The Los Angeles City Council could vote this week on whether to proceed with the elimination of 1,000 positions to address this year’s $208-million deficit and the city’s dwindling reserve fund. Santana urged city officials to immediately begin seeking private contractors for the convention center, municipal golf courses, city parking garages and the zoo. For example, a proposed pilot program in the parks department would contract out 20 percent of its landscaping duties. And L.A. residents could soon see some unpleasant changes.
Tree trimming may no longer be a service that Angelenos can count on. Because of prior budget cuts, very few of the city’s palm trees will be trimmed this year, according to the report. In the future, the city’s top budget analyst is asking City Council members to consider reducing the costs of street tree trimming “to the bare minimum” and returning “responsibility for street tree maintenance to the abutting property owner,” as was the case before a change to city law in 1931.