Get expert desert planting advice to save you time and money, and avoid mistakes and aggravation, and learn the best ways to spend your energy for long term landscape happiness, not just short term gratification. Make sure your yard and garden is beautiful to look at, not just functional. (This can be especially helpful for homes in communities with covenants and restrictions.)
As the saying goes, you can “Plan not to fail, or fail by not planning”
The same is true with gardening, ‘Plant not to fail, or fail by not properly planting!’
DATE & TIME
This will be a 3 hour class – not inside a classroom, but IN THE ACTUAL GARDEN
April 15th 2PM to 5PM
Attendees are welcome to stick around afterwards for an optional vegan pot luck afterwards from 6PM to 8PM
LOCATION
Private address provided once you sign up.
SUGGESTED DONATION
A portion of the proceeds will be going towards a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit “The Living Works,” so your donation can be Tax Deductible.
$25 (for singles),
$35 (for couples/team/bring-a-friend)
- No one will be turned away for lack of funds. However, IF you cannot afford the class, we ask you to pay $1 to reserve your space and then volunteer for an equal exchange of 3 hours in the garden.
–> This must be arranged with the instructors PRIOR to showing up for the class. - Every Attendee will be given a complimentary package of seeds.
TOPICS
The Art & Science of Edible Landscape Design will focus on:
- DESIGNING A YARD for BEAUTY and ENJOYMENT, as well as function.
- Why preparing your entire yard and land prior to planting (Site Assessment, Grading, Establishing Hard-Scape, Irrigation, Improving soil through Ammending, Compost and Mulching…) may be a very smart idea
- The 12 Permaculture Principles adapted for REALITY, and for Modern City Folks
- 7 Key Factors to Consider when laying out your outdoor spaces.
- The 5 Principles of Landscape Design and choosing a Landscape “style.”
- How to maximize growing potential by being strategic with specific varieties and space saving techniques in your yard.
- Landscaping for small spaces: There is space for everything when everything in its right space.
- Rough sketching your yard and establishing work, play and rest zones along with tools for inspiration
- The pros and cons of: veganic, organic and conventional gardening.
- The pros and cons of buying different size trees: bare root vs 5-gallon pot vs large potted tree (15-gallon or more). Hint: Spending more money on the largest tree may be a waste of your money, and not the best for food production.
- Pruning trees for production vs. pruning for landscape beauty.
- The pros and cons of planting two or more trees in one hole vs multi-grafted tree.
- Strategies for amending the native soil, irrigation, mulch and pruning for abundant fruit and nut production in our desert climate of Las Vegas.
- Thoughts about Companion Plantings
ABOUT THE TEACHERS
Chef Mason Green and anand, CFRC
Cary (Chef Mason) and Mary-Margaret (anand or m&m ) Stratton were born and raised in Los Angeles where they became Historic Preservationists and have restored multiple Mid Century Modern homes including a Los Angeles Cultural Landmark Eichler home. They along with one of their historic restored homes was featured on an episode of Ask This Old House. They helped to save the Palm Springs Tramway Gas Station (Visitor Center), Cinerama Dome, a Route 66 Googie windmill, and the La Concha Hotel from demolition, and have been featured in magazines articles. In Las Vegas, their home, the “Caddyshack” was featured in Las Vegas Home and Design Magazine and on the first architectural tour of Paradise Palms in 2008 which helped to ignite historic preservation in the neighborhood which is now the first historic overlay zone in Clark County. As architecture advocates, anand wrote the books: How Modern Was My Valley and Mondo Vegas. They produced three “Mondo Lounge” retro festivals, numerous historic tours, and have received awards for their design work, including the Las Vegas Mayors Urban Design Award. Their work may be seen at AtomicColony.com
Professionally, they both have served in entertainment and arts for over two decades. Chef Mason worked on the likes of Austin Powers, Big Lebowsky and Titanic. He has played drums for thirty years and currently plays with a jazz trio in Downtown Vegas. anand is an accomplished composer, artist, UX architect and Award-Winning Art Director. She has consulted for Dreamworks, Mattel Toys and Tommy Bahamas.
On the flip side, anand was ordained an Essene in 2011 and is certified as a Raw Food Nutritionist from the Body Mind Institute. She wrote the books, Stop Picking on Me and The Good Wiccan. Chef Mason received certification as a Gourmet Raw Food Chef and Educator from Living Light Culinary Arts Institute. Together, they co-created raw food recipes for the book, Eat Like Eve. They have recently authored two books, Kiss Addiction Goodbye (the Twelve Step Diet system) and Marry and Grow Happy (They have been successfully married for over 25 years). They also love to teach classes about Raw Cacao and Veganic Gardening. They were trained volunteer garden docents of the legendary Filoli Estate in Woodside, CA, and have traveled far and wide to observe and learn design principles from the other world’s best arboretums, botanical and Japanese gardens: Butchart, Brooklyn and Boboli, Vanderbilt and Vizcaya, Longwood, Monticello, Huntington and many others.
About WholeWay Home
This will be our first public class at our Urban Homestead, Whole Way Home, a healthy long-term home-stay in a Downtown 1954 Vintage Vegas house, where they have been establishing a Permaculture oriented Food Forest. The yard started simply, with planting three pistachio trees in the front yard (two girls and a boy) and a few edible cacti (aloes and agave). Then as the master plan for the yard grew, so did our collection of trees and plants. Since embarking on improving the original WholeWay Home property, we have endeavored to grow as many medicinal and edible plants as possible on our site. We try to maximize the ‘food forest’ potential by espalier techniques, pruning, companion planting, multiple trees in one hole, and Veganic gardening. The collection was initially inspired by the edible bio-dynamic principles and plants of the biblical Essenes in the Middle East, knowing that these food producing plants did well in another desert area of the world (figs, olives, jujubes, pistachios, dates, pomegranates, and grapes). The plant collection grew to include any edible plant that could weather it through our intense climate zone. These included edible natives as well as exotics such as several varieties of Goji Berries (or Wolf Berries), Ginseng and He Sho Wu, among others.
Now that our foundation trees are firmly established and starting to produce, we have been working towards a Permaculture approach with the remainder of the companion plantings, mixed with traditional Mid Century Modern (MCM) Landscape design inspired by the legendary Garret Eckbo. This means, that we intend to have layers and interactions of permie principles with a pleasing MCM architectural DESIGNED approach to the garden – creating living space nooks and crannies and outdoor ‘rooms.’ The focus is on useful livability that just so happens to also include food producing plant life. This concept is being executed on two normal standard sized older city properties measuring 110′ deep by 64” wide (Each estimated lot size is 0.17 acre). Our current foundation (tree and larger specimens) plant inventory stands at over seventy (70) plants in various states of growth and production on a total of roughly one third of an acre.
Lastly, we started the Little Free Downtown Health Library (Charter #33110) in 2015. Donations of books on positive living are always appreciated.
https://www.facebook.com/LittleFreeHealthLibrary
J.D. and Lena Mumma
J.D. is often referred to as the “Walking Encyclopedia” or the “Ralph Nader” of health, fitness, nutrition and Human Excellence. He began his quest for a life and a world filled with health, honor and prosperity, back in the late seventies while attending Junior High School. In the decades that have past he has had a lifetime of human potential experiences. Through his one-to-one consulting, seminars, writings, and classes, he has inspired and empowered thousands, many of whom are among America’s “Who’s Who,” to live healthier, happier, more full-feeling lives. He spoke alongside people such as Deepak Chopra and Barbara DeAngelis. He has instructed and presented his ideas at world famous health resorts, including the world famous La Costa Resort. J.D. also designed and implemented the one-to-one Personal Fitness Counseling Program at the Rancho La Puerta. J.D. is also co-owner of Lifetime Fitness and co-author of “The F.U.N. Program – Mastering the Shape and Health of your Body” – a complete package containing six audio tapes, a two hour video, and a fifty page guidebook – that is a holistic integration of the physical, nutritional, mental, and social skills and habits needed to master the health and shape of your body, with an emphasis on long-term health and weight management.
Lena Mumma started her home based, family owned green business, EcoPeaceful, when she could not buy or find any non-toxic, non-GMO nut milk bags to make nut milk for her family. Now she offers the world’s first truly 100% organic cotton and hemp bags right out of Las Vegas, NV. She and her husband have gone on to educate about Eco and Peaceful ways of living, and every now and then exposing people and companies that are not acting in the best interest of the public.
About the EcoPeaceful Food Forest
J.D. and his wife, Lena, decided that they had had enough of: environmental destructive food, long-distance food transportation, ‘biosolids’ (treated toxic sewage sludge) used on farms, non-recyclable food packaging trash, high costs (financial, health and/or environmental) or store bought foods, not knowing where or how our food was grown or handled, animal abuse and killing (even with plant based foods). Two years ago, they purchased a run down property (5+ years abandoned and significantly vandalized) and dove into building our Sustainable Veganic Food Forest Homestead project. Currently they have over 60 fruit trees and are planning to have about 150 more on their ⅓ acre property. Their focus of their Food Forest project is experimenting with exotic (out of the ordinary and/or close to the edge of our Hardiness Zone) fruit trees. E.g. cherimoya, white sapote, jujube, papaya, dragon fruit, passion fruit (produced fruits a month after planting), kiwi, pow pow, and maybe more! They have sought out knowledgeable and experienced experts who can advise them how to grow food without animal-harming ingredients, i.e. Veganically (Vegan & Organic).
Veganic:
Is a portmanteau (a linguistic blend of words) of the two words Vegan + Organic. Veganic agriculture is therefore: free of inputs from exploited animals, avoids harming animals and applies organic agriculture methods.
Initially they hired a well known local nursery, including “professional tree planting” service and “landscaping design” consulting (who had never even grown a fruit tree before). It was a “learning” experience. They planted trees in holes they dug that were only a few inches larger than the pot! They also got a pollution ‘bonus’ in the “Premium” mulch that had trash (plastic, broken glass, and cigarette butts…). When trees started to die, they decided to take matters into their own hands and learn how to DIY (Do It Yourself).
Bob Morris
Professor Emeritus (retired) Bob Morris (aka Xtremehort) is a walking encyclopedia on desert horticulture, who worked in desert Universities since 1979. Bob is now active teaching and consulting locally, nationally and internationally. He has consulted many times on the Mumma’s Food Forest project. He has a very informative (“public service”) website where he offers a massive amount of desert horticulture tips; most of his tips are offered in a Q&A format. You can stay updated of new posts by signing up for free to receive his weekly newsletter at http://xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com/
Bob Morris’ list of fruit/nut trees that he believes will do best in Las Vegas: http://xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com/2011/04/recommended-fruit-tree-varieties-for.html
Learn how to respond to the unique challenges we have for growing in our desert environment.
If you have or are planning to have fruit/nut trees we believe this to be a must-attend class.