Living Green
Big Impact on Low Impact Living
by Tom Morrow

Whether you're creating the home of your dreams or preparing for someone else's dreams, first impressions are everything.

Seasons Landscape of Laguna Beach has become of one Southern California's premier environmentally conscience firms. Seasons is a noted Orange County landscape architectural and construction management company, creating unique environments for private homes, upscale home developments, and commercial complexes.

Though "going green" has become an important aspect over the last few years throughout the design profession, Seasons Landscape always has been at the forefront in conceiving low-energy, environmentally conscience designs.

Scott Hutcheon is president and founder of the 10-year-old Orange County firm. While there are a lot of good landscape firms and fine architectural and construction companies, few have the ability to combine all of these talents into one vision, as does Hutcheon. With a bachelor's degree from the Landscape Architecture and the College of Environmental Design department at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Hutcheon and his staff are on the leading edge of, not only design, but in caring for the environment.

"We are dedicated to designing unique concepts with the latest materials using environmentally conscience technology," Hutcheon explained. "We're always pushing the envelope on each aspect of every project to make it better or different than the last one."

Often clients themselves push that envelope and Hutcheon strives to meet their requests and lifestyle. "The clients usually know what they want and it's up to us to make sure they get it," he added. "Our clients are detail-oriented; they know what they like and don't like. That always creates different ideas for us to work with."

Softscape (plant life) blends with hardscape in a Seasons' design. "Blending the softscape with the hardscape of a design always is important to our concepts," Hutcheon said. "Where possible, we're always promoting native plants of Southern California. We often design our landscapes to use less fresh water on the site by relying instead on the property's 'gray water,' which is recycled drainage water, rainwater and recycling certain parts of the house water."

The latest trend in construction and landscaping today is making sure each property has as little impact on the environment as possible. To that end, Hutcheon says Seasons Landscape utilizes products and concepts which meet that goal.

"We incorporate, where possible, living walls and green roofs," Hutcheon explained. "To accomplish this, we construct these projects using special panels erected on the walls and roofs." Seasons Landscaping is the West Coast supplier of these systems and with a growing number of projects in California, Nevada and Arizona, Scott Hutcheon is on the forefront of this unique technology. Living Walls and Green Roofs have the ability to do many things green, such as cool the building and reduce air conditioning costs, improve air quality, reduce storm water runoff into precious lakes and streams, provide health and wellness by providing a spiritual and physical connection to nature, restore natural habitats like birds and butterflies and increase the value of the building.

He said a plant called sedum is a perfect choice for a roof top garden because of its extreme hardiness and ability to survive with relatively no water.

Another way to conserve water is by using permeable paving on driveways and walkways. "There are certain concrete products that allow water to soak right through them, restoring the property's ground water table rather than running off into the gutter," Hutcheon said. "Many of these products are manufactured using recycled materials and are much lighter than ordinary concrete block. Lighter products like these make it much easier to work with. When they're being transported by truck to the building site, are much lighter and won't take as much fuel to deliver."

Solar panels are one of the original items to be utilized in an environmentally sensitive landscape. They are used to heat swimming pools, provide electricity for low-voltage lighting systems. And, in a growing number of projects, provide energy-neutral systems to power the entire property.

"The landscaping and construction industry currently is in a green revolution. It's massive," Hutcheon said.

Seasons Landscape is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council and the Natural Resource Defense Council.

"We're in the process of being certified by USGBC as a 'Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design' (LEED) certified company," Hutcheon said. "LEED, although it has been around since 1998, has recently been the latest movement by cities to revamp their building departments, which will require many of these LEED environmental practices."

He said the city of Los Angeles currently is retrofitting its building ordinances that will require certain new construction projects to be LEED certified.

He estimates Orange County and, eventually, all of California, will take the route Los Angeles is taking.

"Under L.A.'s new rules that are soon to be passed, certain buildings are going to have to meet this LEED certification," he said. And, there's a bonus for taking the initiative with LEED. "Anyone building a LEED certified project will get priority at the building department. They won't have to wait in line for approval and they won't have to pay permit fees."

With various eco incentives provided by certain cities on the horizon, Hutcheon believes LEED certification is opening up an entirely new industry with new products, new jobs and new ways of thinking.

"It's the future of building and it's here now," he concluded. "It's making a big impact on low impact living."

For more information regarding Living Walls and Green Roofs, call Seasons Landscape.

Seasons Landscape
949-419-6530
www.seasonslandscaping.com