Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase - Sat. Apr. 21st

Image from Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase.  All Rights Reserved.

As spring arrives and April gains its foothold on the year, events such as National Landscape Architecture Month and Earth Day prompt a bevy of great Los Angeles garden tours, ranging in scale from the regional down to the local.  Perhaps one of the most exuberant (and a personal favorite) has to be the one coming up tomorrow.  The Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase, running from 10am to 4pm on Saturday April 21st, is great because it is basically an open-source, neighborhood celebration of sustainability and garden-making in all of its forms.  While some signature designed gardens are always present, you also get the opportunity to see amateur enthusiasts proudly share their converted front and backyards with neighbors and strangers alike.  The result of the event is both grounding and inspiring because it reinforces just how accessible sustainability is becoming and how much the notion of sustainable landscapes continues to infiltrate the community outside the confines of professional dialogue. 

The tour is organized for ease into 6 districts across Mar Vista, and you can preview and filter different focus areas for the gardens on the Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase webpage to help craft what you want to see, including urban farms or habitat-focused gardens.  Below is more info from the event webpage - hope you can make it out!

The Mar Vista Community Council invites you to participate in the FREE fourth annual Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase - a citywide Earth Day celebration on Saturday, April 21st, 2012 from 10 am to 4pm. See the gardens on the tour here. We have 50 NEW gardens this year! Use the  labels on the side bar to preview the gardens by areas of special interest.

Use this MAP to plan your own personal tour. 

      Print out the map for each of the six tours - 

          Map 1, Map 2, Map 3, Map 4, Map 5, Map 6

Maps will be available at these 9 gardens the day of the tour. Here are some tips to use the bus and your bike to take the tour!

The tour showcases drought-resistant landscapes and edible gardens with sustainability features ranging from composting techniques to water capture practices. Urban farms range from aquaponic farming to 6 gardens with chicken coops. This year the tour places special emphasis on the critical need for ocean friendly gardens and California native gardens that support much needed pollinators such as honey bees and monarch butterflies. See how creating outdoor rooms provides much more useful livable space than a traditional lawn and creates a sense of community.

This giant eco-festival is comprised of 90 private resident gardens broken into 6 compact self-guided walking tours throughout Mar Vista. On the heels of three wildly successful prior tours that topped 2,000 attendees last year, the Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase will include special guest presenters at many gardens to enhance your knowledge of sustainability in daily living. Especially valuable is the chance for guests to meet do it yourself gardeners who share knowledge and experience. This is truly a giant block party throughout Mar Vista and you will have a blast meeting your neighbors as you visit their gardens.

The Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase seeks to empower Los Angelenos to adopt environmentally conscious living solutions. With most people walking or biking their tours, there is a tremendous sense of community as residents throughout Southern California come to Mar Vista to celebrate our shared vision for a greener life.

Guest presenters on the tour include HoneyLove.org, Los Angeles County Master Gardeners,The Seed Library of Los Angeles, Open Neighborhoods on solar and  Grow Native Nursery. 26 Landscape designers will be at gardens to answer questions and share information.

Mar Vista can make a difference!

For more information please email gardens@marvista.org

Media is welcome.

Venice Garden and Home Tour -this Saturday

Image from Venice Garden and Home Tour.  All Rights Reserved.

This weekend brings another installment of the annual Venice Garden and Home Tour.  Running from 10am to 5pm on Saturday, May 7th, the walking tour will feature over 30 gardens and homes throughout Venice for people to ogle and muse over.  Should be another interesting installment, especially with the continuing onslaught of contemporary homes being designed and built in Venice.  More on this year's tour is shown below, as well as some pictures from previous years:

This annual self-guided walking tour will feature 30 gardens and homes in the charming, secluded Walk Streets neighborhood and streets south of Venice Boulevard. The tour is a showcase of how architects, landscape designers, and homeowners have crafted gardens and homes to make lovely living oases. These private spaces, sequestered behind carved wooden doors, contemporary metal gates and imaginative fences, are open to the public this one day of every year when tour-goers can walk the streets, meet and enjoy the community, and be inspired by the inventive design, surprising spirit and whimsy that is uniquely Venice.

The Walk Streets through tranquil neighborhoods where the homes face one another are actually pedestrian paths that bring people together. When Venice was being developed, workers lived in modest bungalows that later became summer beach homes for Angelinos; many of the remaining old bungalows are reworked now to meet today’s standards and tastes, and sit side by side sleek contemporary cubes. Local architects Barbara Bestor, Tom Carson, Talbot McLanahan, Tim Petersen and Robert Thibodeau, along with local landscape designers such as Jay Griffith, Pamela Burton, Naomi Sanders and Di Zock, have influenced the constantly evolving development of these distinctive neighborhoods.

The gardens and homes on this tour exemplify Venice's creative energy: the homeowner’s love of living inside or outside with nature, the use of lanterns and crystal chandeliers found hanging from trees or cleverly placed antique neon signs and sculptures in just the right places to enhance gardens. In these rustic enclaves, rooftop gardens and solar panels pop up into the trees, and tiny vegetable gardens thrive next to shady children’s play yards.

Now in its 18th year, the Venice Garden and Home Tour is the much anticipated annual fundraising event that draws visitors from all over California. The tour gives financial support for NYA’s Las Doradas Children’s Center, a licensed child care facility that provides full-time, education-based child care to low-income working families.

Image from Venice Garden and Home Tour.  All Rights Reserved.

Image from Venice Garden and Home Tour.  All Rights Reserved.

Spring Garden Events

Springtime means a lot of things in Southern California: blooms, the return of beach weather, and garden tours.  The LA Times has a comprehensive list of upcoming garden tours and events for the LA area.  Below is a brief list of some of the upcoming tours and plants sales.

April 28-May 1: The 21st annual Southern California Spring Garden Show      .

April 30: The self-guided Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase

April 30-May 1: The Mary Lou Heard Memorial Garden Tour

May 1: The Garden Conservancy's Open Days tour of private gardens in Pasadena.

May 1: The 52nd annual garden tour of the Santa Monica Bay Auxiliary, Children's Hospital Los Angeles will feature six Westside gardens.

May 1:  The Westlake Village Garden Club hosts its 38th Annual Garden and Patio Tour  of five gardens in Westlake Village and Thousand Oaks.

May 3:  The Sherman Library and Gardens Volunteer Assn. presents its 15th annual garden tour from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at private homes in Corona del Mar and Newport Beach.

May 6: This year’s self-guided Gate and Garden Tour in Laguna Beach. www.lagunabeachgardenclub.org.

May 7: The annual self-guided  Venice Garden and Home Tour

May 13: Friends of Robinson Gardens will present the 23rd annual “... Into the Garden” benefit tour 

May 15: The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days tour of Los Angeles.

May 15: The Huntington Botanical Gardens 36th annual spring plant sale .

June 4: The San Clemente Garden Club Tour

CicLAvia!

CicLAvia is back!  After a hugely successful debut last year, the second go-round (and the first of three scheduled events this year) is this Sunday, April 10th from 10am to 3pm.  The free, bike and pedestrian-oriented event should be even bigger and better and will be taking over even more real estate in neighborhoods ranging from Silverlake, Hollywood, and Koreatown down to Downtown. More info is below from CicLAvia's website:

Los Angeles’ second CicLAvia will be Sunday April 10th 2011 from 10am-3pm. It’s FREE, fun, family-friendly! Click for: route map, flier, or volunteering. RSVP/share on Facebook – or just show up! Check FAQ page for answers to CicLAvia questions. See the activtity map page for scheduled events or to add your own. (More 2011 events: July 10, October 9!)

Replace Your Lawn Workshops all Month!

Image, and bumper stickers, from Tree of Life Nursery.  All Rights Reserved.

Is your 2011 resolution to finally get rid of your lawn?  Well, you are in luck!  Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano is hosting "Replace Your Lawn" workshops every Saturday during the month of January.   And, it's all FREE!

Sadly, this post is too late for the first workshop, but three great workshops remain.  Definitely worth checking out for expert advice on re-imagining your front yard without lawn, and the opportunity to find quality native plants for your new outdoor space. Upcoming workshop descriptions are presented below.  But, don't worry, if you can't attend the workshops, Tree of Life has handouts for every workshop (see the link below the descriptions), and a great cheat sheet on 30 California Native Plants to help you get started: Thirty Basic California Native Plants.   Go Green - Plant Natives!

Replace Your Lawn!

Start the New Year right by getting rid of that expensive water-guzzling, care-intensive lawn, and make way for a gorgeous native landscape!  Back by popular demand, we are presenting our Replace Your Lawn (RYL) workshop series in a four part installment about the basics of converting your lawn into a beautiful, carefree, sustainable habitat.

These workshops will be held SATURDAYS at 10 AM in the month of January, beginning January 8, 2011.  This RYL series is unique because we will hold two sessions on plant selection covering evergreen native plants and flowering perennials seperately.

All of these workshops are FREE of charge and each session lasts about an hour and a half, (depending on questions!).  Hopefully you will be able to attend each of the sessions at least once.  No reservations are required.

Saturday, January 8, 2011 - 10:00 AM
Replace Your Lawn I: Kill the Grass

Step one - get rid of it!  This may be more involved than you would expect and the methods to get rid of a lawn are quite varied.  Avoid unnecessary labor and learn several successful methods for lawn removal, depending on you turf type, budget, and timeline. First in our popular four-part series.

Download the handout: Replace Your Lawn: Kill the grass!

Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 10:00 AM
Replace Your Lawn II:  Creating and Caring for Your Native GardenSecond in a four-part series about Replacing your Lawn. Now that you have killed your grass, what are supposed to do?  Mike Evans will share from our booklet, "Creating and Caring for your Native Garden", that you can download here.  Learn how to create a thriving native garden.

Saturday, January 22, 2011 - 10:00 AM
Replace Your Lawn III: Plant Selection - Foundation Plants Learn about the backbone of every native garden: neat, evergreen and carefree foundation plants.  While California’s flora offers a wide variety of flowering perennials to choose from, be sure to use plenty of hearty evergreen woody shrubs to provide an attractive backdrop to showcase your flowers as well as to keep your native landscape looking full, lush and neat.


Saturday, January 29, 2011 - 9:00 AM
Replace Your Lawn IV: Plant Selection - Flowering Perennials
After you have determined the look and feel you wish to achieve in your garden, the fun begins – plant selection!  We will present a group of plants we call our Thirty Plants.  These are the “must-haves” for any native California garden.  This selection of thirty plants represents a handsome mix of the most authentic native plants for Southern California gardens.  As we discuss the Thirty Plants, we will expand our knowledge of natives in general, and learn how to chose the right plants for any particular design theme.
Download the handout: Thirty Basic California Native Plants

CicLAvia is Coming Back!

Image from CicLAvia. All Rights Reserved.

CicLAvia is coming back to Los Angeles in April.  After a hugely successful inaugural event, the bicycle and pedestrian-focused fete is going to be taking over Los Angeles streets again on April 10th.  Although the route of the event will be similar to the first, the hope is to expand the event with future dates planned for July and October.  The LA Times has more:

Last October, CicLAvia drew an estimated 100,000 pedestrians and bicyclists to a long stretch of city streets that were cordoned off to traffic. Now organizers say they are ready to do it again.

The next incarnation of CicLAvia will take place April 10, according to Aaron Paley, CicLAvia's producer and a member of its steering committee. He said its footprint will be similar to October's route, which zigzagged from East Hollywood through Westlake and into downtown and Boyle Heights.

Paley said the committee, a diverse collection of bike activists, transportation experts, academics, artists and event planners, plans to host two more events in 2011, in July and October, and would one day like to see a monthly CicLAvia in L.A.

"We have tremendous momentum," said Paley, who reported that city officials had approached the group after the first event to start planning the second. "There wasn’t any question of whether this was gonna happen again. It was just, 'How soon can we do it, and how high should we aim?' "

The concept of the ciclovia, which is Spanish for bicycle path, originated in Bogota, Colombia, three decades ago. Now each Sunday there, hundreds of thousands of people take to the temporarily car-free streets. Many other cities around the world, including New York, have hosted similar events.

Total Lunar Eclipse

Monday night promises a relatively unique celestial event - a total lunar eclipse will be visible from 11:41pm until 12:53 a.m.  This will be the first total lunar eclipse in almost three years.  Don't worry if weather might be an issue where you live (especially since LA might very well be in the midst of a long-lasting rain event that night) because NASA will be streaming the eclipse live on their website.

Further coverage of the eclipse is below from the LA Times:

A total eclipse of the moon will be visible throughout North and Central America from 11:41 p.m. PST Monday until 12:53 a.m. Tuesday, the first such eclipse in almost three years.

Weather permitting, observers will see the moon enter the Earth's inner shadow, or umbra, at 10:33 p.m., with a red-brown shadow creeping across the bright moon. This shadow has a curved edge, a fact that was taken as proof to at least some ancients that the Earth is round. The sky will get darker as the shadow progresses across the moon, and more stars will be visible as sunlight reflected from the moon fades.

The total phase of the eclipse will last 72 minutes, then the moon will begin to emerge from the umbra, coming totally out of the inner shadow at 2:01 a.m.

Unlike during a total solar eclipse, when the sun is blotted out, in a lunar eclipse the moon rarely appears black. Because of sunrises and sunsets around the world that scatter and refract light from the sun, the moon generally appears bright and coppery orange, or sometimes brown or dark red-black, depending on how much pollution is in the atmosphere.

The most recent total eclipse of the moon was on the night of Feb. 20, 2008.

Also unlike a solar eclipse, which can generally only be seen from select places on the Earth's surface, a lunar eclipse can be seen from anywhere on the side of the Earth facing the moon at the time.

The next lunar eclipse is June 15, 2011, but North America will be facing the wrong way. Another eclipse, on Dec. 10, 2011, will be interrupted by moonset and sunrise.

The next total lunar eclipse for the entire continent doesn't occur until April 14-15, 2014, an unusually long wait.

NASA will be hosting Web chats about the eclipse and, for those encountering bad weather, showing it live at http://www.nasa.gov/watchtheskies.

Arid Lands Lecture Series

So this post is a day late and a buck short for last night's lecture featuring Aziza Chaouni and Liat Margolis, but the Arid Lands Institute at Woodbury University is featuring another excellent series of lectures on Thursdays this fall and winter.  The theme for the series is "Excavating Innovation: The History and Future of Drylands Design."  Recent lectures have covered such topics as the "Waters of Rome" and "Out of Water".  More information about upcoming lectures is listed below in their recent press release, and can also be found at aridlands.woodbury.edu/lectures.

Excavating Innovation: The History and Future of Drylands Design
Lecture Series: 2010_2011

The human need for water has ordered landscapes, given rise to culture, and shaped architecture + urban form throughout history.

Excavating Innovation: The History and Future of Drylands Design examines the role of water engineering in shaping public space and city form, by using arid and semi-arid sites in India, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and the New World to explore how dryland water systems throughout history have formed and been formed by ritual, hygiene, gender, technology, governance, markets, and, perhaps above all, power.

Excavating Innovation: The History and Future of Drylands Design brings together historians, urbanists, and contemporary designers to selectively excavate global historical case studies and reveal relevance to contemporary design practice.

Excavating Innovation: The History and Future of Drylands Design participants include:

Katherine Rinne:  The Waters of Rome
Thursday, October 7th, 2010

Aziza Chaouni + Liat Margolis:  Out of Water
Thursday, November 11th, 2010

Morna Livingtson:  Steps to Water
Thursday, November 18th, 2010 

Nan Ellin, PhD:  Canalscape
Thursday, January 27th, 2011

Vinayak Bharne:  Urban Water Crisis/Perspectives from South Asia
Thursday, February 10th, 2011

For more information, go to: aridlands.woodbury.edu/lectures

Location: 

Woodbury University
7500 Glenoaks Boulevard
Burbank, CA 91510
818 767 0888
woodbury.edu

CicLAvia this Weekend!

10-10-10 CicLAvia Route Map.  From CicLAvia.  All Rights Reserved.

CicLAvia hits the streets this weekend, taking over a large stretch of LA roadways on Sunday from 10am-3pm.  All of LA is encouraged to participate by taking to the streets, literally.  Streets will be closed to vehicular traffic for 5 hours, allowing LA residents to use the streets as pedestrian oriented open spaces to bike, walk, run, play, or generally make use of space usually not reserved for them.  And, in a city like LA, that is a lot of space.  Should be an interesting opportunity for LA to reimagine itself, even if it just for a few hours. A full list of activities is available on the organizing website.  Go CicLAvia!

Dwell on Design

 Image of Vapur Anti Bottle - from ConstructLA.

Dwell on Design was last weekend here in LA.  Sadly, I had a number of commitments that prevented me from attending, but another blog, ConstructLA, has a nice recap of their top 5 products from the expo.

Bring on the Corpse . . . Flower that is!

 (Image from The Huntington Gardens.  All Rights Reserved.)

Exciting news for LA plant enthusiasts and fans of the macabre alike.  The Huntington Garden reported today that their Amorphophallus titanum, or corpse flower, has opened and is now blooming!  Depending on nature's whims, LA residents have another day or two to run out and catch a whiff of the foul smell that the plant uses to attract pollinators in its native rainforest ecosystem.  Perfect timing for a weekend visit for those so inclined. 

On The Hungtington's stinkyblog (their name, not mine), you can find out more about the plant, and see time lapse images of the bloom. Lisa Boone and the LA Times also provided a nice overview of the plant on Thursday:

Thursday afternoon the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino posted a coy message on its Twitter account: "A fly has been spotted buzzing around the Corpse Flower bud. Does he know something?"

Officials later released a statement declaring that Amorphophallus titanum, the so-called corpse flower nicknamed for its pungent odor, "will likely open in the next 2 to 4 days -- subject to nature's whims, of course."

Huntington curator Dylan P. Hannon added that healthy adult plants can flower every three to five years, "but that is not to say they will follow any pattern."

This year's corpse flower is smaller than its predecessors, making it difficult for curators to predict when it will bloom. The plant, shown at right, measured 3 feet, 8 inches high on Thursday. Regardless of size, it's expected to smell equally rotten. According to the Huntington, the odor gives rainforest insects a heads-up that the plant is ready for pollination.

As reported earlier, the flower appears infrequently and lasts for only about a day. To see and smell the flower is still considered a rare event, as you have to be in the right place at the right time.

Corpse groupies can get up-to-date information on  the Huntington's website, on Facebook or on Twitter. The garden even has created the Stinky blog.

California Scenario turns 30

Famed artist, sculptor, and landscape designer Isamu Noguchi's California Scenario project in Costa Mesa is celebrating it's 30th anniversary this year.  The Dirt reports that to commemorate the milestone, the Noguchi Museum in New York has a new exhibition discussing the work, complete with photographs, models, and video. 

The Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, New York, has marked the thirtieth anniversary of famed modern artist Isamu Noguchi’s California Scenario with a new exhibition. The public garden, commissioned by developer and philanthropist Henry T. Segerstrom, is located in Costa Mesa, California. The exhibition explores the design of garden through photographs, models, and video.

In 1979, Segerstrom asked Noguchi to design a public garden to enhance two office towers built on family land once used as a lima bean farm. While Segerstrom initially wanted a lush retreat, Noguchi instead created a simple stone plaza with a few green spaces. The Noguchi Museum writes that the artist first conceived the project as an “abstract metaphor for the state of California, from the Sierras, to the desert, to the woods. In addition to including redwoods and cacti, among other native plants, it encompasses a number of individual elements designed by the artist to evoke some of California’s salient characteristics.”


The garden features a crack filled with water and stones, which functions as a stream beginning at the thirty-foot-high sandstone triangle named “Water Source” and ending at “Water Use,” a granite wedge. ”Forest Walk” takes visitors past a patch of California redwoods and “Desert Land” features a “symmetrical mound planted with a variety of cacti, agave, and other desert plants.” The sculpture “Spirit of the Lima Bean,” twelve-feet-high carved granite boulders, educates visitors about the earlier use of the site.

Segerstrom and Noguchi worked on the project for two years. Today, it’s a well-visited (and well-maintained) site open to all. In fact, Segerstrom “personally ensured” California Scenario was well-preserved over the long-term.  The exhibition is open through October 24, 2010.

Sadly for us, the exhibit is in New York, but fortunately for us, the actual work is still open to the public in Costa Mesa. So, while you can't go to the exhibit without a plane ticket, you can enjoy the unique sculpture garden in person with a short drive to Two Town Center next to South Coast Plaza.  While there, you can also see a classic Peter Walker design. 

(images from The Dirt, courtesy of The Noguchi Museum, New York.  All Rights Reserved.)

Arid Lands Recap #2

(Image from Fritz Haeg.  All Rights Reserved.)

The Second Workshop in the Arid Lands Series was “Smart Landscapes: Yard, Driveway, Sidewalk, Street” and featured a talk by artist Fritz Haeg, architect Holly Harper, and landscape architect David Fletcher.  Fritz Haeg talked about his ongoing "Edible Estates" art project that has converted 8 lawns around the world into high-profile food producing gardens for the homeowners and residents.  Holly Harper discussed some of her work with the non-profit Northeast Trees which was founded by a landscape architect and installs urban green infrastructure in Los Angeles, including street trees and alternative stormwater infrastructure.  And David Fletcher discussed the different design strategies available for stormwater management, and presented some interesting case studies and conceptual work demonstrating how these tools can be applied to a site in a functional and aesthetic fashion.

By far some of the best quotables came from Fritz Haeg, in part because his project is designed to be provocative.  However, Holly's talk provided a nice technical case study of how you can build in stormwater capacity into an existing street with 95% impermeability, and David provided a nice conceptual framework for designers to think about how stormwater management can be part of an aesthetic language that has cultural meaning and beauty beyond the purely technical innovation these new strategies represent.  Below are some of the interesting tidbits (recorded and or paraphrased to my best ability) that came out of the talk:

“Lawn is the biggest crop in the United States (if you include our front yards in the equation)” - Fritz Haeg

"I like to create landscapes that demand participation. You can't learn to grow food from the internet, you have to interact with people." - Fritz Haeg

"People make decisions (about our built environment) that we are left with." - Fritz Haeg

"Multifunctional design is like the difference between a regular knife that can cut things and a Swiss Army Knife that can still cut like a knife, but it also has all of these other capabilities." - David Fletcher

National Landscape Architecture Month

It's April and that means it's National Landscape Architecture Month. The Southern California ASLA Chapter has a number of good events lined up for the month, including a tour this Saturday of the Council District 9 Neighborhood City Hall by Pamela Burton and Company that features a green roof, solar panels, and a graywater reuse system (see poster below).

Other events include lectures by Mia Lehrer and Ken Smith, and tours of Vista Hermosa Park and Valley Crest Tree Nursery.  More information on all of the events is available at the Southern California ASLA webpage.

Arid Lands Institute - Spring 2010 Design Workshops

The Arid Lands Institute at Woodbury University in Burbank has announced their Spring 2010Workshop series.  Focusing on "Smart Design Strategies for Managing Water + Energy in a Changing Climate," it should be an excellent series featuring a nice mix of design professionals, sustainability experts, and advocates.  The free workshops are designed to introduce laypeople, developers, stakeholders, and design professionals alike to water- and energy-conserving design strategies. While I imagine some of the content may be general for knowledgeable participants, it promises to provide regional case studies, and an opportunity to dialogue about sustainable design strategies for Los Angeles.  Registration information is available on their webpage.

Workshop_1: Smart Buildings: Green Roofs/Green Walls
Saturday, March 27th
9 am – 3 pm
Linda Taalman, Taalman Koch Architecture
Deborah Richmond, AIA, Touraine Richmond Architects
Stephanie V. Landregan, ASLA, UCLA Extension Landscape Architecture


Workshop_2: Smart Landscapes: Yard, Driveway, Sidewalk, Street
Saturday, April 3rd
9 am - 3 pm
Fritz Haeg, Edible Estates
Holly Harper, NorthEast Trees
David Fletcher, Fletcher Studio


Workshop_3: Smart Systems: Rainwater Harvesting + Greywater
Saturday, April 17th
9 am - 3 pm
Leigh Jerrard, California Greywater Corps
Jenna Didier, Fountainhead Design

Green Events Calender

Want to attend green events in LA, but aren't sure what's going on?  Check out Go To Green LA for a great calendar of events.  Coming up this week: free composting workshops, ecohome tours, volunteer expos, and green networking happy hours. (image from gotogreenla.com - all rights reserved)

Go Green Expo - Jan. 22nd - 24th

The Go Green Expo is coming to the Los Angeles Convention Center Jan. 22nd - Jan. 24th.    Friday is dedicated to a business-to-business expo, with both Saturday and Sunday open to the public.  The expo will feature environmentally friendly products and services, speakers, and a career fair related to the green industry.