Landscape Designer Orange County by Jesus Arizaga, Arizaga Landscape Design

Landscape Designer Orange County - Jesus Arizaga Landcape Design

Landscape Designer Orange County – Jesus Arizaga Landcape Design

Jesus: We do everything that is landscape and hardscape. Crystal wants to visit us when we doing a . . . I told her, “That’s not a . . . probably it’s not a very nice day to come to see my work because it’s very dirty.” We’re fixing a koi pond with a leak. We moved the fish out of the pond, put a temporary tank, and then fixed it. It was this much mud. For 20 years, they didn’t do anything, so it was really bad.

Business Growth Innovators Member: It was very dirty.

Jesus: Very dirty. It’s one of the things that I really like to do. I really enjoy my work. Besides the koi ponds, we do everything that is landscape. Today, my idea was to speak a little bit sprinkler systems. It’s how . . . we lost a lot of water in Southern California, everywhere, but especially on this side where we are through our sprinkler systems.

We’re watering the concrete. We have a car wash, free, every morning whenever we park our cars because the sprinkler systems, by using the not- appropriate nozzles. We lost . . . more than 45% of the water that we spend in California is on sprinkler systems and 70% of that water goes back to the ocean because it’s not properly used.

It maybe sounds too much, but it’s true. Anywhere you go, just look in the morning when it’s watering and there’s water on the concrete. The whole street is full of water, running water. Especially on the front; it’s a small strip, 3 feet most of the time, 5 feet, the most, or sometimes more. Around 4 or 5 feet wide, and the people who did the sprinkler system, they put 20 feet radius nozzles. That means we spray 20 feet that way, 20 feet that way. We only have 3 feet wide, so the rest is watering all to the concrete.

In the last 3 years, nozzles that we can use in those small strips and use 50% less water; proven that it’s less water. The way those nozzles work is it puts in the water slowly, not a big throw, a lot of water; a lot of flow in a small amount of time. It is more like what they’re trying to do is to make it rain so that the water goes slowly to the ground, to the grass, and taking longer time. Let’s say instead of only putting on 5 or 10 minutes, a lot of water and most of it goes to the street; we put 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and the water goes slowly into the ground, so giving time to absorb.

It’s possible to do a retrofit. If you have an existing sprinkler system, you get those new nozzles. It costs a little more, unfortunately, than the regular ones, but saves a lot of money. In 2 or 3 months, you’ll get your money back. For example, for me to install a smart water system, is how they call; I will charge you the same on labor to put a regular nozzle that cost $1, and then the new ones cost $2.50. In labor, I will charge you exactly the same because it’s the same process. It doesn’t take me a second more or a second less; it’s exactly the same, either one. I will charge you only . . .

The labor is the same on labor, the difference on the nozzles, but it’s . . . in 2 months, you’ll get your . . . let’s say you have 500-square feet of grass and you have 6 or 8 nozzles. It will only cost you $10 more in parts, and labor is the same. It’s not much difference, and you get your money back in a month or two by saving that water.

Also, we were doing concrete. Everything that is concrete we can do it, especially those that are a little bit crazy or a little bit different. Sometimes I have ideas and some of the people on this group before, they tried my crazy ideas. Just different, they’re not crazy, it’s different. It looks nice, it’s very nice all together. We do native California plants, also; from succulents, like the real native California plants.

One of the members that used to be here, we did her backyard. I went to see her a month ago; it looks like the . . . when you go to her backyard, just like the meadows in Yosemite. That was the idea, to have the long grass. It looks very nice. Her cat loves it; the cat is happy. When you like that landscape, it’s very nice. We also do succulents. When we talk drought-tolerant plants, we automatically think on cactus, but it’s not necessarily cactus. We like cactus so we can look at it, but if you don’t like cactus, we can do something different. There’s a different way to put all together. Any questions?

Business Growth Innovators Member: Do you do little electrical lighting, like a walkway think?

Jesus: Yeah.

Business Growth Innovators Member: You can build those little structures in there and everything, and the electricity and all that good stuff.

Jesus: Yes, we can do low-voltage lighting. The same; it depends on the budget. You can go from the cheap ones to the really high- prices. [inaudible: 07:59] for example, is the top-of-the line on low-voltage lighting, so you can’t get anything better. It’s all brass and really nice light fixtures. You can go with the ones from Home Depot. It depends on . . . and the same is for me to install either one is exactly the same.

Thank you very much, everyone.

If you need landscape design in Orange County, California call

Arizaga Landscape Design
Jesus Arizaga
562-858-7416
jyjarizaga@verizon.net