And the Beat Goes On

As some of you may or may not know, I'm trying to get my feet on the ground and start my own landscape design business. I frequently think to myself that this is insanity. Outside of school, I haven't run an entire design project and my only solo built project is my parent's garden. Its overwhelming to me to think that I actually have the skills and talent to convert someone's yard into a play area or kitchen garden or an outdoor living room.

At some point though, you have to get over yourself and do something. So here I find myself, working on my friends' new house, getting paid for it, and before it even gets built getting a request from one of their friends to do work on their home.

So begins Aeonium Design Studio. I'm really excited for this, and we're breaking ground on my first house in a matter of a week or so. Its been really fun getting back into design work, drawing and rendering plans, setting up my contractor's account at my favorite nursery, and doing research on California native gardens. I think I'll be blogging about the state of garden design in California in addition to my usual ramblings, so be on the look out if that's your kind of thing.

In addition to starting Aeonium, I'm taking a Landscape Water Practitioner class at Cuyamaca College as a grant student through the American Recovery Act. We had our first two classes this week and its fantastic. We're doing soils, plants, and irrigation. Its like the best parts of a landscape architecture degree, but without grades or tests, and with far more field instruction. Its really exciting. The class is mostly focused on becoming a California Landscape Irrigation Auditor, a Certified Landscape Contractor, and understanding and working with Assembly Bill 1881 - so needless to say, its a lot of information, and I'll be writing about that here too!

Well off to pack for my next adventure - roller derby in L.A...