- Water wise meadows have gained in popularity in southern CA, including in Santa Barbara, over the last few years. A variety of native grasses, herbs and perennial wildflowers can be planted together in distinct patterns or motifs.
- November is a great time to plant natives in Santa Barbara. Getting the plants in the ground at the beginning of the rainy season allows for nature to help their establishment for the longest amount of time, at the time of year they are used to receiving the most water. Even planting through the middle of the rainy season can provide a positive start for natives and other plants that are indigenous to other Mediterranean climates.
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Want to get some idea of what water harvesting looks like? Visit one or more of these community demonstration sites created between 2012 and 2018:
Spencer Adams Park, 1216 De La Vina, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. Ocean Friendly Gardensled a series of hands-on workshops to create a dry creekbed fed by rainwater from a nearby roof, alongside a native garden in an area that had been lawn. Barbara Wishingrad of Sweetwater Collaborative helped to create this project that was completed in November 2012.
Santa Barbara Association of Realtors, 1415 Chapala St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. Multiple downspouts are redirected to large basins to collect roof runoff in this garden that flourishes without irrigation most of the year. Wilson Environmental was the contractor. The project included a hands-on workshop that Barbara Wishingrad of Sweetwater Collaborative participated in, in September 2013.
Santa Barbara City College, 721 Cliff Dr, Santa Barbara, CA 93109. A 2500 gal raintank was installed in a hands-on workshop in January 2014 by Sweetwater Collaborative and Watershed Management Group.You can see the tank behind the Facilities building just to the west of the Lifescape Garden. The tank overflow is directed into the garden. Barbara Wishingrad and other Sweetwater Collaborative colleagues helped to create this project. Fred Hunter (one of Sweetwater's instructors) and his Landscape Construction class students enhanced the tank overflow/earthworks in 2017.
Schott Center, 310 W. Padre Sr, Santa Barbara, CA 93105. A dry creekbed and native garden was created in two hands-on workshops, led by Watershed Management Group of Tucson, AZ, also in January 2014. The garden is fed by rainwater harvested from a nearby roof, and can be seen on Padre St, near the Auditorum. Barbara Wishingrad and other colleagues of Sweetwater Collaborative helped to create this project.
Carpinteria Valley Water District offices at 1301 Santa Ynez Ave, Carpinteria, CA 93013. Sweetwater Collaborative led two hands-on workshops in September and November 2016 to create rainwater harvesting earthworks and a plant pallete of mostly succulents as a demonstration garden at the Water District headquarters. About 25 volunteers participated in each workshop.
Wake Center, 300 N Turnpike Rd, Santa Barbara, CA 9311.In the front parking lot, you can find two sets of curb cuts, on two different islands. These cuts pave the way for stormwater to flow into the mulch basins on the islands, irrigating vegetation there instead of gathering speed and pollutants as it makes it way downhill. Just off of that parking lot, alongside the Auditorium, there is a rain garden that uses water collected on two sections of the roof. Barbara Wishingrad, Fred Hunter, and Josh Graning of Sweetwater Collaborative led students from the Advanced Green Gardener class in creating these projects in February 2017.
Impact Hub Funk Zone at 10 E Yanonali St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. Around the back off of the parking lot, there is a native garden in the narrow spaces, and a tropical garden in the triangular space, that is fed by air conditioning condensate. Both gardens were put in in Sweetwater Collaborative workshops in December 2017 and February 2018.
The Butterfly Garden at Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens, 1500 Santa Barbara St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 was in need of ersoion control. The UC Master Gardeners, who tend the Butterfly Garden, partnered with Sweetwater Collaborative and the City of Santa Barbara to put in some rolling dips across the DG path, mulch basins, and a low retaining wall in November 2019. Problem solved.
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Santa Barbara Permaculture Network & Sweetwater Collaborative Present:
Booksigning & Evening Talk with
Brad Lancaster
author of
Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands
Turning Water Scarcity into Water Abundance; Vol.1, 2nd Edition
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
7:30 pm, $5 donation
Santa Barbara Central Library, Faulkner GalleryRainwater Harvesting expert Brad Lancaster returns to Santa Barbara with his newly published 2nd Edition of his award winning, best selling book Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands; Turning Water Scarcity into Water Abundance, Vol. 1, 2nd Edition on Tuesday, June 25.
Brad's books have always encouraged readers to turn water scarcity into water abundance by welcoming rain into our lives, landscapes and soils. In this newly updated 2nd edition, Brad updates real life case studies for harvesting rainwater, completely renovates the approach to seeing & understanding sediment flows, and adds more tools for harvesting rainwater and other often overlooked free on-site resources, such as wind, sun, and shade.
Rainwater harvesting is the process of capturing rain and making the most of it as close as possible to where it falls. By harvesting rainwater on the land within the soil and vegetation, or in cisterns that will later irrigate the land, it is possible to control erosion, reduce flooding, and minimize water pollution. This practice is enormously beneficial in a world with a finite supply of fresh water that is becoming increasingly polluted.
Although rainwater harvesting has been accomplished by humans in virtually every drought vulnerable region of the world for millennia, our society, until very recently with the help of people like Brad Lancaster, seemed to have a collective amnesia about the utility, efficiency, and beauty of rainwater harvesting practices.
Brad Lancaster is an author, permaculture teacher, designer & consultant, and co-founder of Desert Harvesters (DesertHarvesters.org). Brad has taught programs for the ECOSA Institute, Columbia University, University of Arizona, Prescott College, Audubon Expeditions, and many others. He has helped design integrated water harvesting and permaculture systems for homeowners and gardeners, including the Tucson Audubon Simpson Farm restoration site; the Milagro & Stone Curves co-housing projects. Brad lives on an eighth of an acre in downtown Tucson, Arizona, where annual rainfall is less than 12 inches. He practices what he preaches by harvesting over 100,000 gallons of rainwater a year, and with his brother Rodd, have created an oasis in the desert by directing harvested rainwater into a thriving landscape that includes abundant gardens, food bearing trees, and habitat for wildlife, instead of into the streets and storm drains of Tucson.
The evening talk & book signing takes place at the Santa Barbara Central Library, Faulkner Gallery, 40 East Anapamu St, SB, 93101, in downtown Santa Barbara, on Tuesday, June 25, 7:30-9pm. $5 donation, no reservations required. Co-sponsored by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network & Sweetwater Collaborative. For more information, please call (805) 962-2571,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .Event Sponsors:
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
www.sbpermaculture.org
&
Sweetwater Collaborative
http://www.sweetwatercollaborative.org/
MORE INFO:
Harvesting Rainwater:
www.HarvestingRainwater.com
Sweetwater Collaborative
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweetwater-Collaborative/113158298771036
We are community members committed to making our homes, yards, and neighborhoods more sustainable. We help people live their environmental values. Our legacy is putting in water harvesting projects using a barn raising model, in hands-on, community-based workshops
You Tubes:
Rainwater Harvesting with Brad Lancaster
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9Ku_xpyLK4
Sustainable World Radio Podcast Brad Lancaster
http://pdcastsusworldradio.libsyn.com/webpage?search=brad&Su -
Sweetwater Collaborative presents
The first in a series of Technical Round Tables
for Landscape ProfessionalsMonday, September 14, 2015
7:00-8:30 PM
Watershed Resource Center, 2981 Cliff Drive, Santa Barbara, 93109, at Hendry's (Arroyo Burro) Beach
$10 payable at the door in cash or check
Stormwater management through rainwater harvesting mulch basins: an innovative approach to compliance and keeping stormwater on site.
Best practices for mulch basin and rain garden architecture in our climate.
Examples of mulch basin construction in various stages of installation:
Join us and other colleagues to learn more about rainwater harvesting and work together to create the highest standards of beauty and functionality for water-wise landscapes in our Mediterranean climate.
For more information, visit www.SweetwaterCollaborative.org
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Are you a landscape professional working in or near Santa Barbara? Worried about drought or deluge? Come to Sweetwater Collaborative's Technical Round table for Landscape Professionals on Monday, February 8, 2016, from 7:00-8:30 PM. at the Watershed Resource Center at Hendry's Beach. The topic is Storm water capture Making use of the run on bonanza.
Get ready for ongoing El Nino storms by setting up your clients' landscapes to 1) absorb all the water that lands on them from the sky, and 2) all the water they can handle that runs on or by the property from adjoining watersheds.
Special guest facilitator Art Ludwig, ecological systems designer, and Fred Hunter, Permaculture designer and licensed landscape contractor, will lead the discussion.
Yup, there's a couple inches of wet on the surface from recent rains, but the drought continues unabated from there to the center of the earth. Yet.....
Reproduced with permission from "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond" by Brad Lancaster, www.HarvestingRainwater.com.The average Santa Barbara lot gets as much water from the sky as through the meter! Yet…so much of this runs off that it does no where near as much good as it could.….in the recent three inch rainfall, the the surrounding soil was wet just one to six inches down. Meanwhile, on a property where where the stormwater run on was infiltrated four feet down. Needless to say, this helps trees and groundwater recharge far more.Join us on Monday, February 8 from 7:00-8:30 PM at the Watershed Resource Center, 2981 Cliff Dr, at Hendry's Beach, in Santa Barbara.Suggested donation: $10 at the door, payable in cash or check. Please share this opportunity with other landscape professionals. -
Sweetwater Collaborative will lead the effort to put in a rainwater harvesting demonstration garden at the Carpinteria Valley Water District this fall. We will start with a community hands-on workshop creating the earthworks for this project, on Saturday, September 10, 10:00 AM- 3:00 PM. Register now
Come be a part of something bigger, shape the earth to harvest water to build rich soil and nourish a water wise garden, at the Carpinteria Valley Water District offices. Water that falls on the roofs near the front of the offices, on Santa Ynez Ave, will be directed from downspouts into channels and basins that will form the foundation of a beautiful rain garden.
This workshop is free to participants; we ask that you sign up online so we have a good head count. Snacks, a light lunch, drinks, and many tools will be provided. Please bring your pointed shovels, picks and trowels to help with the effort. This will be a social work party that you'll walk away from with ideas and some real skills to implement in your own landscape. Register now
This will be a learning through doing workshop, with additional educational points reviewed during the break and lunch. If you want to learn more about rainwater harvesting within the soil/earthworks before the workshop, here are some helpful links:
http://sweetwatercollaborative.org/old/basic-page/what-rainwater-harvesting
http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/rainwater-harvesting-inforesources/water-harvesting-principles/ and
http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/rainwater-harvesting-inforesources/water-harvesting-handouts/
Join us on Saturday, September 10, 2016 from 10:00am-3:00pm at the Carpinteria Valley Water District at 1301 Santa Ynez Ave, Carpinteria, CA 93013.
