Ari Tenenbaum wanted to make a “difference” with his career.
So nine years ago he founded Revolution Landscape, an eco-friendly design, build and care business serving both residential and commercial customers up and down the San Diego coast.
“Our primary business is actually landscape design and installation,” said Tenenbaum. “Our niche is doing edible and sustainable landscape.”
Tenenbaum, who has a background in plant science and organic agriculture, handled a project recently for Whisknladle in La Jolla, consulting with them on the best fruits and vegetables to grow for their restaurant on a farm in Ramona.
“We helped them put together a pretty comprehensive farm plan and got that up and running so they could then run it themselves,” Tenenbaum said. “We looked at how much they were able to yield and the costs, what they might be looking at to run and maintain it, as well as what types of crops they should be focusing on. We helped them prepare their soil and irrigation, as well as teaching them how to plan.”
Tenenbaum noted “green” growing is all about water conservation and irrigation.
“We teach people about efficient irrigation, including things like weather-based controlling, wherein you have an app on your phone with your watering history plugged into it than you can adjust using real-time weather information from a satellite to tell you things, like whether it’s going to be cloudy or hot,” he said. “It’s a lot like home automation where you can turn off the air conditioning in your home before you even get there.”
The whole idea behind sustainable landscaping, said Tenenbaum, is to “use water in a way that is smart and efficient.
“It’s creative landscaping that captures water runoff, not necessarily in rain barrels, but in ways that directs rainwater away from running into the storm drain system when it rains and goes out into the ocean untreated. We also work on keeping as much water onsite as possible, preventing water runoff. That is huge for San Diego and coastal communities,” he said.
The landscaping professional noted his goal is to “make our urban environment more sustainable encouraging people to use their landscape, which has the potential to pollute and environmentally degrade, but also has a huge potential to be a source for wildlife habitat, and a way to prevent pollution. We thought that was a really cool option. “If you’re putting in lawns and using a bunch of fertilizer that pollutes, to use that to fertilizer to create sustainable landscaping minimizing the amount of chemicals you need to use to grow plants which provide pollen and food sources for bees and butterflies creating a much more sustainable and vibrant urban environment.”
Tenenbaum said Revolution is focused on “taking landscape that is grass or hardscape and turning it into and ecosystem, a place that’s going to beautiful and good for the homeowner as a well as the environment.
“That’s a win-win,” he concluded.
For more information, visit www.revolutionlandscape.com.