Posted in Randomness on March 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Rich Rodriguez from KMPH 26 News likes California Buffalograss and so should you! 🙂 Like us on Facebook! We were featured on the local news during the Fresno Home & Garden Show as a great drought tolerant lawn alternative! Especially right now with California in a severe drought!
Posted in Randomness, Tips & Advice on March 11, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Well we’re back from the Fresno Home & Garden Show and California Buffalograss drew lots of interest! Here are some of the most common questions we were asked:
For more info visit us at www.californiabuffalograss.com and don’t forget to like us!
Posted in Giveaways, Randomness, tagged buffalograss, fresno home show, uc verde, uc verde buffalograss on March 3, 2014| Leave a Comment »
If you’re a local, be sure to stop by the Fresno Home and Garden Show this weekend and say Hello! We’ll be there sharing the wonderful water saving UC Verde Buffalograss and we’ll also be sharing some special show-only promotions! And the most important part?!…they’ll have fair food there…like the cinnamon rolls…mmmmm…
Posted in Randomness, tagged gr on April 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »
I’m sure just like you, we all have a lot of things to do – work, family, weekends…things slip our mind…
A couple of weekends ago, my dad gave a presentation at the local botanical garden on California Buffalograss. At the end of their event he packed up his sample trays into the back of his SUV and headed home…
…A week later as he went to throw his golf clubs in the back of his car, he found the California Buffalograss trays still sitting back there…all, week, long.
A week cooped up in a warm car is hardly the ideal environment for any plant, but dad pulled them out and gave them a good watering anyhow – and what do you know!?…
The California Buffalograss trays sprang right back up and are as good as new! Talk about drought tolerant! 🙂
Visit us at www.californiabuffalograss.com to learn more about this resilient lawn alternative or to place your order today!
Posted in Randomness on April 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »
It’s April! The flowers are blooming, the plants are growing…and my allergies are going crazy! Ah-choo!!!
If you’re an Allegra-D/Claritin dependent like me then you can appreciate that California Buffalograss has virtually no seed heads and a pollen rating that is just slightly higher than 1. The American Lung Association recommends using plants which have a pollen rating of 6 or less for an allergy reduced landscape.
Now is the perfect time to install California Buffalograss – it’s out of dormancy and ready to grow and the weather is perfect for working in the yard! Visit us to place an order or feel free to contact us if you have any questions!
Posted in Randomness on March 8, 2012| 2 Comments »
With notices going out through the city notifying customers of the upcoming switch to metered water, people are looking to lawn alternatives as a way to help cut costs on their skyrocketing bills! Yikes!
Which leaves several options to combat a rising water bill:
1) No lawn – going with drought plants to landscape your yard instead of a traditional lawn. This is certainly a way to cut back – your typical lawn accounts for up to 70% of your water use – but it’s not a look that appeals to everyone.
2) Artificial lawn – Well, pretty much you’re looking at a water free lawn here, but you’re also looking at a pricey upfront cost with the quotes for installation at anywhere from $7 sq ft up to $22 a sq ft – based off of what we were quoted here in town. And it is still, well, fake grass. It might seem kinda strange covering your entire front yard if you ask me. I suppose maintenance is about as low as you can go…unless you just have a concrete “lawn” 😉
3) California Buffalograss lawn – Of course my opinion is biased, that’s a given here! But going with California Buffalograss does seem like a happy medium of sorts – you can still have your lawn and cut back on water consumption – making having a lawn still affordable with meters! Also, with other perks like a max height of just 4-6″, you can mow your lawn just once or twice a month, twice a year or even never! Saving your precious personal time and also cutting back on lawn mower pollutants in the air. California Buffalograss also produces virtually no seedheads, which means it’s soooo much better for allergies than your typical lawn.
So, did I give you enough reasons to turn you into a California Buffalograss convert yet? (nudge, nudge, wink, wink!)
(image sources: 1, 2)Posted in Randomness on March 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »
We just finished up the Fresno Home & Garden Show this past weekend and I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation of a couple passing by the booth.
The husband commented to his wife, “Oh here’s that buffalograss I heard about!” to which she matter-of-factly replied, “You have to own buffalo to eat the grass if you use that.”
This, folks, is not the case in any way, shape or form. It’s quite comical really!
Why is it called buffalograss? Well, let me tell you! Buffalograss originated in the US on the prairies of the Western Plains and it was given the name because it grew under the feet of millions of American bison, often referred to as buffalo!
So there you have it! You do not need to own buffalo to have a buffalograss lawn! And also keep in mind there are lots of varieties of buffalograss out there. California Buffalograss was developed by UC Davis specifically for the conditions of the west coast!
Posted in Randomness, Tours on October 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »
A bit of non-grass info for y’all! Here’s a little peek into the other side of being a part of the nursery…
I’m back from my road trip to speak about marketing at the San Diego Flower & Plant Association’s Annual Growers Meeting. It was a great trip that ended up being a bit longer than I had planned on…
The meeting itself was great – buffet, drinks, raffle prizes, a brief tour of Thompson Rose where the meeting was being held – met new people, got to see some familiar faces…
The following day we were lucky enough to be given the grand tour of Olive Hill Greenhouses! Denise, her husband Will and the main man Tony, gave Darren and I a thorough walk through of their facilities – it was really interesting to see! Growing indoor plants was quite different from what we do as perennial propagators and even from what Darren’s family does as a grower. The 2.5 hour tour was the perfect way to top off our work trip! And all the beautiful plants we got to take with us (as many as the Mini could fit) didn’t hurt either!
Lots and lots of colorful bromeliads (amongst many other types of beauties)! Aren’t you so jealous!?
Their awesome living wall in their office. I think I want one too now!
One last stop before the trek back to Fresno…a quick pop-in at McCall’s Meat and Fish in Los Feliz to visit Darren’s brother at his meat shop to take a little something back home for dinner. With spicy lamb sausages and their house burger blend in our ice chest, we were finally off! – be sure to check it out if you’re the foodie sort!
…then halfway through the grapevine, my tire began to shred…
Long story short…we had to stay the night in Gorman, because it was too late to get anything done. All of the local shops were not set up to change tires on a Mini and also did not carry any tires that would have fit anyways (Mini’s don’t come with a spare – they ride on run-flats, but run-flats only work if your tire isn’t on the verge of disintegrating).
We hauled all our stuff into our hotel room, plants included, and had pizza delivered to the room – which I found through the clever advertising they placed next to the tv channels sign (menu on back with Holiday Inn Express discount too, clever indeed!)
Unloading our goodies…I think our hotel room was the nicest one that night!
We woke up bright and early to be towed to the nearest BMW dealership in Bakersfield so that they could change out the tire – then walked to a chorizo breakfast – then 4 hours later we were finally on our way back home.
It was a great trip – minus the tire scare/hassle – but it’s good to be home and in a car that’s driveable 🙂
Posted in Randomness on July 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Are you a fan yet on our Facebook page? If not, you’re totally missing out! Gary just posted a bunch of pics from his recent California Buffalograss installation on our FB page! So now, Gary accompanies Mike in our Awesome Book 🙂
Here are some highlights in case you missed out!
It took Gary and his garden crew of 3, a little over 2 hours to drill the holes and install the California Buffalograss plugs into his 950 sq ft lawn. Gary got creative and made a jig to help him with the spacing layout!
We usually recommend 12″ center spacing which comes out to a plug per square foot -which means 8 trays for Gary, since there are 128 plugs per tray.
As Gary drilled the holes his crew followed behind installing the plugs.
And Gary was kind enough to do a bit of free shameless promoting for us! Thanks Gary!
Now go and become a Facebook fan and check out the other California Buffalograss pics our fans have posted! 🙂
Posted in Randomness, Tips & Advice on April 5, 2011| 5 Comments »
Niko sunbathing at work – our California Buffalograss is coming out of dormancy woo hoo!
Remember when I posted awhile back wondering about the effects of dog pee on California Buffalograss (hey, just because we grow it doesn’t mean we run dog urine trials on it!)? Well I got a response from Will – a California Buffalograss and dog owner:
“We have California Buffalograss in our backyard with a full time dog and dog pee will definitely kill/make the pee areas yellow. We water it 2x a day so it waters it down pretty well but there are two spots in my yard that were definitely killed by the dog’s pee. It might be water wise but it doesn’t know what to do with pee.”
So there it is folks…the dirty low down on dog pee. Just like most grasses, California Buffalograss isn’t feeling it either.
Oh well, I guess you can’t win them all…
***Update y’all! We recently had someone inform us on our facebook page that she really doesn’t have an issue with burn spots from her dog – who happens to be 75lbs – so I imagine it has a decent amount of pee! Maybe it all depends on the size of your lawn and the number of dogs you have…perhaps smaller yards get “hit” more often in the same spot than larger yards do? Well, it looks like the results are back to being inconclusive for now!***
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