Location: Menlo Park, Calif.
Company: Gachina Landscape Management

When Gachina Landscape Management won a renovation job for a 24,000-square-foot property, it was tasked with the demolition, irrigation and plant material installation.

“This was a new install from the ground up,” says Fidencio Hernandez, landscape construction project manager at Gachina. “We dug every single trench to install the main line, laterals and two-wire cable from one location throughout the main line with loops at the valve boxes.”

Two crews of six people worked at the site from September 2019 to February 2020, using Rain Bird FXS line for much of the drip irrigation and Rain Bird’s 1401 bubblers and deep-root-watering bubblers with check valves. If all goes well, Hernandez says the remaining portion of the project should be completed by the end of March 2020.

While the site does not currently fall under any water-use regulations, it will be adjusted to low-water use once the plant material — which includes groundcovers, grasses and native flowering shrubs — is established and mature, Hernandez says.

“If there are any droughts that come into effect, water will be regulated even more so,” he says. “The majority of the plants are California natives, which is why this is a great design. It’s designed for low water use.”

A photo of the fountain courtyard, with areas of native plant material, on the outside of one of the site’s buildings.

The plant material for the renovation in Menlo Park, Calif., once it’s complete, will include groundcovers, grasses and native flowering shrubs.

Knowledgeable irrigation tech employees of 15-plus years at Gachina Landscape Management program new irrigation XFS dripline and bubbler zones.

In addition to performing the irrigation installation, Gachina’s crews installed native plant material at the project site.

A Gachina construction employee follows plan specifications to install a 24-inch box oak tree.

In the fountain courtyard, Gachina collaborated with other trades, such as Cultivate Studio, throughout the duration of the project to execute the California-native planting design, based on Cultivate’s design. The deck worker crew installed decking as part of the landscape area to be renovated.

In addition to drip irrigation, the site will make use of Rain Bird’s 1401 bubblers, as well as the company’s deep-root bubblers with check valves.