![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Bay-Friendly gardening
Apr. 10th, 2006 10:40 pmTwo other Master Gardeners and I met with the director of the Bay-Friendly program today. Bay-Friendly Gardening focuses on sustainable gardening techniques, low/no pesticide usage, water-wise gardening, low waste/energy, and wildlife habitat awareness. It's an exciting program with several components. It was developed in Alameda County, but they'd like to see other counties import the program.
We're very excited. We can easily see ourselves presenting the series of classes they've developed, from Introduction to Bay-Friendly Gardening to a class on actually developing a design with the assistance of landscape designer. They've got a great registration program and display plaque for people whose gardens meet the criteria of Bay-Friendly. They've worked out a nursery program to label plants as 'Bay-Friendly' which has dramatically improved sales of those plants, much to the nurseries' pleasure. They've got classes and certification for professional landscapers, which is a wonderful thing, though it falls outside our target audience of home gardeners, so we'd probably let some other agency take on that component. All in all, it looks like a wonderful synergy is building up!
We're very excited. We can easily see ourselves presenting the series of classes they've developed, from Introduction to Bay-Friendly Gardening to a class on actually developing a design with the assistance of landscape designer. They've got a great registration program and display plaque for people whose gardens meet the criteria of Bay-Friendly. They've worked out a nursery program to label plants as 'Bay-Friendly' which has dramatically improved sales of those plants, much to the nurseries' pleasure. They've got classes and certification for professional landscapers, which is a wonderful thing, though it falls outside our target audience of home gardeners, so we'd probably let some other agency take on that component. All in all, it looks like a wonderful synergy is building up!
