The issues I have addressed in this booklet are part of the larger concept of sustainability. This concept will play a major role in the coming decades.

Sustainability requires the homeowner to choose cooperation with rather than depletion of the environment.  It is the “categorical imperative” of ecology. Each of our daily actions affects our environment in either a positive or a negative way.

We have the opportunity and responsibility to create a healthy and beautiful place for generations to come. Sustainability asks the gardener to reach out from the back yard, expanding the concepts of environmental garden design to environmental community planning.

Our work is certainly cut out for us!

I hope this information will be of use to the environ-mentally minded California gardener who contends with drought, deer, slugs, bugs, gophers, unexpected frost and wildfires.

There is only one reason to put up with the hard work and unpredictable results of our endeavor: GARDENS ARE WONDERFUL!