When ARCO called in 1989, Dell responded. If the oil company wanted to conserve water, he could provide a landscape plan. The catch was that it had to be environmentally sensitive and drought-tolerant, irrigated primarily with drip irrigation.

The project under consideration was the 5-acre ARCO conference center, which sits majestically overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Montecito, a suburb of Santa Barbara, CA. Although beautiful to look at in the 1980s, the property did not exude the virtues of an environmentally balanced landscape.

In 1989, the site's water-loving annuals and extensive turf areas contributed to the property guzzling more than 4.5 million gallons of water a month. In a time when Santa Barbara was worrying whether or not its water supply would totally dry up, the ARCO site's water use sent up all kinds of red flags at the local water district.

A longtime expert in low-volume irrigation and drought-tolerant planting, Dell of County Landscape & Supply in Santa Barbara proposed shaping the turf areas and adding several drought tolerant perennial beds. Skeptics at ARCO's head office doubted whether drought-tolerant plants could provide the colorful, sophisticated look they wanted for their conference center.

Dell arrived at ARCO's downtown Los Angeles headquarters armed with a carousel full of his best slides of drought-tolerant plants. His meeting with the company's CEO didn't take long. After showing a few colorful slides that displayed yarrow and Jerusalem sage in full bloom, Dell landed the job.

Much of the turf area was kept, using sprinkler irrigation. Dell added shape to the turf with perennial and shrub beds. More than 9,000 drought-tolerant plants filled the mulched beds that helped to highlight the turf. Dell's expertise with drought-tolerant plants allowed him to select colorful perennials that could survive with minimal irrigation.

To irrigate the beds, Dell installed an extensive low-volume irrigation system. More than 15,000 drip emitters were placed to irrigate plantings.

Dell also landed the landscape and water management contract for the ARCO site. He supervises the site's landscape maintenance crews and sets the irrigation system himself. Every Wednesday, he uses a soil probe to check the soil moisture at different areas around the site. Then, he sets the irrigation clocks accordingly.

"The goal is to just replace what's lost by evapotranspiration," Dell says.

The irrigation system and management have worked so well, that the site has reduced its water use to a third of what it was before Dell started. Dell credits both the irrigation system and the revised irrigation management goals. He has worked extensively with the landscape staff to re-orient their thinking on irrigation.

The ARCO site has bloosomed beyond Dell's initial hopes. As the landscape manager, he has instigated an IPM program onsite, virtually eliminating chemical controls. To control a white fly problem, he released a predator to reduce the fly numbers to an acceptable number.

Dell is establishing an on-site composting operation. The landscape staff will chip shrub and tree prunings and use the chips either in compost or as mulch. Other landscape debris will be incorporated into a compost pile for later use in soil modification.

"We're trying to keep everything on-site. I'm trying to make it a model sustainable landscape," Dell says.

Back to the Future
The sustainable approach to landscaping is what the 41-year-old Dell had in mind when he first founded his landscaping company back in 1971. He had just moved out of the urban sprawl of San Francisco to a quieter, gentler life in Santa Barbara. He became entranced by native plants as he hiked in Los Padres National Forest above Santa Barbara.

"I couldn't understand why all of these beautiful plants weren't being used horticulturally," Dell remembers.

In between landscaping jobs, Dell took classes at the local community college and learned more about native plants. When he could talk his customers into them, he used natives. However, native and naturalized plant material was hard to come by in the 1970s. Dell remembers that only about a dozen species were readily available.

Customers weren't exactly banging down his door asking for low-volume irrigation and drought-tolerant plantings. Some of his first jobs were mowing lawns for $1.50 an hour. Dell spread his share of white rock around concrete-edged beds at mobile home parks. To warm up after a hard morning, he and his partner would huddle around a local coffee shop's bottomless cup of coffee. To make up for the calories they burned working, they doctored the coffee with liberal amounts of creamer, making a "coffee soup."

"I started at the lowest possible level. You just have to work hard and treat people right," Dell says. "It takes a long time to get good enough to work on top projects."

Slowly but surely, Dell's talents grew to match his dreams. By the early 1980s, Dell's landscaping company boasted several trucks, six fulltime employees and a never-ending supply of work. There were so many jobs pouring in that Dell had to work 12- to 14-hour days, seven days a week just to keep up. The dream had turned into a nightmare.

"I just decided it wasn't worth it," he recalls.

The creative artist who liked to hike in the mountains and walk on the beach decided to step back to a simpler, quieter existence. Dell fired everyone and sold all of his equipment. It turned out to be one of the turning points in his life. He took control.

"It made my life a lot simpler," he says. "I spend more time doing design and less time fixing rotary tillers on Sunday afternoon."

He still maintains a design-build landscape and irrigation contracting business, but now he subcontracts the installation work to the firms that used to be his competitors. The arrangement has worked out well for everyone, he says.

Selling Drip Irrigation
At this stage in Dell's career, he enjoys the luxury of plenty of referrals. Most of his clients call pre-sold on the idea of having Dell install or renovate their landscapes.

"The drought was the best thing that ever happened to me. In a lot of cases, I was doing work when no one else was," he says. Dell's three biggest years were the years at the height of the drought.

County Landscape & Supply has grown into a $350,000-a-year concern. Almost all of Dell's irrigation installations are low-volume systems with drought-tolerant plant material. He doesn't consider any job that is competitively bid. He wants quality, not price to be the project goal.

On every job, he builds in the cost of drip irrigation for the plants he proposes. He wants his clients to use a soil sampler to plan irrigation, so he builds the cost of the sampler into the project.

When he finishes a job, Dell walks the customer through the project, detailing plant and irrigation needs. Then, he presents the customer with the soil sample tube.

Written handouts tell customers how to help the establishing plants and what to do with the irrigation system. A bi-annual newsletter offers friendly advice on irrigation and plantings.

Drip Installation
In the hundreds of drip systems Dell has designed and installed, he has had few problems. He attributes part of this to his design and installation procedures. All systems have a pressure regulator and filtration device.

Dell believes in installing emitters directly on 1/2-inch tubing that runs from the valve. He punches the tubing on the side, instead of the top so that the emitters won't tend to break off if they are stepped on.

Emitters are placed along a line to correspond with the plantings. Every foot, Dell installs a staple to hold down the tubing. This is substantially more anchoring than manufacturers suggest, but Dell finds the extra staples keep the tubing in its place, below the mulch.

"That works for us. It's simple, but it should be simple," Dell says.

Dell is opposed to using spaghetti tubing in most installations. However, he has found it beneficial for some shrub plantings. Young shrubs planted from 1gallon containers need irrigation provided at the root ball. However, as the shrub grows, irrigation should take place farther from the trunk.

Standard practice suggests plugging off the emitter and installing another farther away. Dell has modified this strategy. He installs the emitters where the mature shrub will need irrigation. Then, he runs spagetti tubing from the emitter to the newly planted shrub's root ball. About every six months, he shortens the spaghetti tubing, providing irrigation for the expanding root structure. The cost of this procedure is built into Dell's price.

Leading the Industry
Innovative irrigation work procedures are only one way that Dell leads. He teaches regular courses at Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens as well as occasional courses for many public agencies, the local community college and University of California extension.

Environmentalism still runs in his blood. Dell is active in many local causes to make Southern California a better place. He supports public education about appropriate plant and water use.

The ARCO sustainable landscape is the first of what Dell hopes will be many landscape projects that exhibit this integrated approach. The environmental awareness that has awakened in the 1990s is just an extension of how Dell has thought all along.

"I'm really excited about the future," Dell says. "I think that the world is at a turning point right now and horticulture is a part of this. Horticulture has evolved from trivial outdoor decorating to environmentalism brought into people's backyards .

"I don't want to miss this. Being a contractor and a landscape architect, I see the reality as well as the theory because I have mowed lawns and moved rocks. I think I can make a big contribution. I feel like I've just been warming up."

Other Writings By Owen E. Dell