States Struggle to Rein in Runaway Garden Plants

On a misty summer morning, ecologist Christy Brigham sinks down to the sand at Point Mugu State Park, part of the patchwork of federal, state and private lands in Los Angeles County's Santa Monica Mountains. She watches a darkling beetle forage among rare dune plants -- lacy, lavender sand verbenas and beach primroses, which resemble large buttercups. When Brigham came to this area eight years ago to work for the National Park Service, she thought she'd become an expert on plants like these, part of the region's unique Mediterranean-climate flora. But instead, she's spent most of her time dealing with common plants, many of them fugitives from local gardens and nurseries. Continue reading on the High Country News website.

Potted

Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont displays the ravishing beauty of California's wild plants. But the setting is so operatic, it can be hard to imagine this flora on a smaller stage, say, a patio or apartment balcony.

Unless you happen upon a nook where native plants are potted up for a more intimate performance.

On a foggy morning, a hummingbird swoops in for a sip of Cleveland sage (Salvia clevelandii, above). Impatiently, it probes the whorls of the petite lavender flowers. This sage is usually a sprawling shrub, but confined to a 5-gallon teal pot, the crisp reiterations of dainty leaves and blossoms have the restraint and precision of a Baroque concerto.

Many of Rancho's pots are tall. Low-growing species are raised 3 to 4 feet off the ground, offering a bird's- or bug's-eye experience of these intricate plants.

Click here to continue reading my LA Times story.

Exploring with Kids

It’s late on a hot summer night. I want my 3-year-old to lie down and sleep.

He won’t — he’s busy nesting. Perched atop his scrunched-up blue blankie, he informs me “I can’t lie down, my eggs will get cold.” I suggest he keep them warm by lying on top of them. “They’ll break!” he wails.

I’m guessing he was a sea turtle that night, because a recent trip to a turtle rescue center had made a big impression on him. But he could just as easily have been a flamingo or an alligator. Could there be anything cuter than Mateo pretending he’s an animal? Well, yes

Read the rest of my story from the September, 2010 issue of Arroyo Monthly Magazine.

Garden Show Preview

(From my article in the March issue of Arroyo Monthly)

There are flashier gardens around town — landscapes cloaked in splashy colors –– but for beauty that’s bone deep, explore the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden in Arcadia. “If you look at what are the most beautiful and environmentally appropriate plants,” says Arboretum CEO Richard Schulhof, “the Arboretum has been working to answer that question for over half a century.”

The Arboretum will showcase sustainable plants at its annual L.A. Garden Show, which runs from April 30 through May 2. Organizers include the Arboretum’s new horticultural curator, Jill Morganelli.

The garden’s aesthetic is partly sculptural — curvaceous succulents alternate with twisting branches and thick tree trunks. Largely absent are beds of rotated, brightly colored annual plants common at nurseries. Morganelli says the Arboretum’s signature bird, the peacock, is partially responsible for the look –– it’s an inadvertent “watchdog” of sustainability. “With annuals — plants that typically live for four to six months –– you’ll just waste all kinds of time and manpower,” she observes, “and they’ll be picked to the ground by peacocks.” She adds that annuals are generally water-hungry plants.

On a recent morning, as peacocks dozed under a Wedgwood-blue sky, Morganelli tromped into the 30-acre Australian garden to discuss alternatives. Amid the familiar eucalyptus and bottlebrushes, Morganelli pointed out unusual kinds of grevilleas and acacias. “Australian plants are super-important to us,” she says. “Their environment is just like ours, only on the other side of the world.” The flora from southwestern Australia, in particular, have adapted to a similar climate and comparable soils. Like California native plants, many will languish if watered liberally in summer. Usually, plants from both regions should not be fertilized; Aus

tralian plants are especially sensitive to phosphorus.

On our tour, Morganelli also dropped by the Desert Garden (near the Peacock Café) to brag about Sophora secundiflora, also known as mescal bean. Native to Texas, New Mexico and northern Mexico, this slow-growing shrub can be pruned into a lovely tree. “There’s rarely a design I do without one of these,” says Morganelli. “In the spring, it blooms the most gorgeous purple and white flowers that smell like grape bubble gum.” The rest of the year this Sophora sports silv

ery seedpods. (Note: The seeds are hallucinogenic, even poisonous.)

The L.A. Garden Show will also spotlight California native plants, flora that Morganelli admires. “The plants act as a habitat for native birds, bees and butterflies,” she says. “The other thing that’s really cool is some of them die back and, like magic, in the spring they rise up from the earth all fresh and new.” Morganelli says the plants generally need regular water to get established, but after about 18 months, “you can water as little as every two weeks and these plants live.”

In addition to the exemplary plantings, the Arboretum is inspiring a new wave of sustainable gardening with classes that are substantive and varied.

For more than four years, K.D. Henderson of Monrovia has been a regular at horticulturist Lili Singer’s Thursday Garden Talks, which prompted her to rip out her front lawn and replace it with drought-tolerant plants, including natives. “Visitors used to walk straight up to my door,” she says. “Now they stop and look around.”

That’s the kind of comment Morganelli, another enthusiastic instructor (she teaches organic vegetable gardening and plant identification) likes to hear. “I really feel we are undergoing a renaissance right now in Southern California landscaping,” she says, “and it’s so exciting to be a part of that.”

Among the Aussies Morganelli pointed out:

Correa pulchella (pictured above);

One of several evergreen shrubs commonly called Australian fuchsia. Little bell-shaped flowers—pink to reddish orange-- dangle from its branches. “It’s a great border shrub,” says Morganelli, “and a great accent you can pepper in, even a wonderful hedge.”

Grevillea ‘Wakiti Sunrise’ (pictured at article top)

This is a cultivated plant (a cultivar) bred from one of the 250 plus species of wild Grevillea. It unfurls intricate clusters of hook-shaped, salmon-colored blossoms. “If you want to get rid of your lawn--and don’t have kids or a dog,” says Morganelli, “look at some of these low-growing shrubs.” She also admires the yellow-green color of the foliage.

Acacia merinthophora

The zigzag wattle derives its name from its stems, which zigzag between its flowers--little yellow puffs accompanied by a single pine needle-like leaf (technically, a leaf-like structure called a phyllode). Zigzag’s branches spill out in a weeping fashion. Arboretum CEO Richard Schulhof advises planting this uncommon beauty in front of a wall “so you can see its shadows and the finery of the foliage.” (Note: Some other acacias—cyclops ,longifolia, and decurrens--are invasive; do not plant them.)

Dodonaea viscosa ‘Purpurea’

This Dodonaea is native to the American Southwest and Hawaii, but most of its close relatives, which are commonly called hop bush, hail from down under. Purpurea can be grouped together for a fast-growing privacy screen. Morganelli advises pairing them with showier plants: “Take the purple-bronze color of the leaves and bounce them off some other, low-growing greens.”

The Native Plants Morganelli recommends include

Penstemon spectabilis

Also known as showy or royal penstemon, this herbaceous plant dazzles with three- to six-foot tall flower stalks, covered with dozens of blue, purple or pink flowers. “I think of penstemons as my answer to foxgloves,” says Morganelli.

Salvia spathacea

This sage is popular with native plant gardeners. It smells delicious (a mélange of honey, lemon, mint), and can fill a difficult niche: dry shady areas. There’s a reason this red-blooming plant is called Hummingbird sage, says Morganelli, “you’ll see hummingbirds drink from these all day long.”

Asclepias fascicularis

That’s a fancy name for a modest plant known as narrow-leaved Milkweed. “It’s not a beautiful plant all year,” says Morganelli, “but it’s a food source for monarch butterflies.” She advises planting it near the back of a bed, and waiting for the gorgeous black and white striped caterpillars to turn up.

Diplacus or Mimulus

Scientifically, this group of plants goes by a tangle of names, but they are easily identified as monkey flower. Hikers recognize some of them from local trails. Some can be hard to grow and are short-lived; Morganelli recommends the yellow and pale orange shrubby kind.

California Native Plants

GOING NATIVE

Grow Local Flora with Plants from Other Mediterranean Climates

for a Fragrant Garden that Blooms Throughout the Year

From the May Issue of Arroyo Monthly

When Elisa and Eric Callow purchased Gainsburgh House in La Cañada Flintridge eight years ago, the garden wasn’t part of the allure. The house — designed by Lloyd Wright, the son of Frank Lloyd Wright — wowed them, but the yard was an unappealing mix of ivy and diseased shrubs. So Eric Callow, a financial advisor and outdoorsman, decided to try his hand at redesigning the grounds. He wanted to use plants indigenous to California “because they represent, literally, a landscape that is beautiful, under attack and which I know from my childhood.” The new garden is dominated by clusters of leafy shrubs, pockets of perennial herbaceous flowers and a meadow of wildflowers. Native gardens are commonly assumed to be brown and full of succulents, but desert-friendly plants are actually uncommon in local ecosystems. After all, most of California is not a desert; it has a Mediterranean climate — hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. Most native plants are less thirsty than common garden plants, but they still create verdant, colorful gardens — even more so when they mingle with others from a similar climate.

For the past five years, the Callows’ yard has been a popular stop on the Theodore Payne Native Plant Garden Tour. The Sun Valley–based Theodore Payne Foundation has been dedicated to the understanding and preservation of California flora since 1960, but its nursery has only recently begun attracting significant numbers of homeowners and landscapers who snatch up its plants as fast as the foundation can grow them.

“People are starting to appreciate gardens for more than beauty,” says horticulturist Lili Singer, who organizes the annual Native Garden Tour. “Gardens are also about the environment and ecology. And the misconceptions about native gardens are falling away. You can do any style of garden, even formal if you don’t want a wild look.” In the Callows’ garden, Elisa points out a few of her favorites: native irises (Iris douglasiana) and coral bells (Heuchera), a delicate plant with bell-shaped flowers that dangle from long, thin stalks. “For something that’s so constructed and organized, it still has a feeling of naturalness, which I like,” she says. She’s also pleased with the many birds and bees the plants attract.

Most of the Callows’ plants are indigenous to Southern California’s two dominant hillside habitats: chaparral and coastal sage scrub. Chaparral plants are usually large evergreens and include such crowd-pleasers as ceonothus — which sports clusters of blue or white blossoms reminiscent of lilacs — and manzanita, prized for its red bark, tiny, urn-shaped flowers and berries that resemble little apples. Aromatic sages, dominant in a sage-scrub habitat, unfurl tiered whorls of petite flowers that hummingbirds adore. In the wild, most of this plant community has been lost to bulldozers.

At first, some of the Callows’ friends were unimpressed with their garden. “They’d say, ‘Why do you have all these weeds in your backyard?’” recalls Elisa, founding director of the Armory Center for the Arts. Now, many of the plants have matured, and they’re gaining more fans. “People love sitting outside when we entertain,” she says. “Our garden has a lot of variety. A more traditional garden is flat lawn and a bed around the perimeter; there’s nowhere for your eye to go. This has a feeling of depth.” And the garden itself is now much healthier.

Only five regions on earth have a Mediterranean climate — most of California, the Mediterranean itself, South Africa’s Cape area, parts of southern Australia and a slice of central Chile — and all produce plants with similar characteristics, including small, thick, leathery leaves with a waxy or hairy coat, which help them retain moisture. Because these plants need similar conditions, they make good companions in the garden.

Some well-known Mediterranean examples are lavender, rosemary, creeping thyme and rockrose. Glendale landscape architect Guillaume Lemoine of Picture This Land also recommends these plants: olive tree, tree mallow (Lavatera arborea), bay laurel (Laurus nobilis) and Jerusalem sage (Phlomis fruticosa). “One of my favorites is Santolina,” he says. “It has little red balls at the end of long stems. I like to cut and dry them.”

Dappling your native garden with Mediterranean-climate plants from various regions can extend bloom time and boost the number of larger flowers. Plants from the Southern Hemisphere can retain their blooming cycle when moved north, according to horticulturist Singer. “They think it’s summer when it’s really winter,” she says, “so it broadens our palette; we can get 12 months of color.”

South African and Mediterranean bulbs such as daffodils, freesias, gladiolus and Amaryllis belladonna are also good choices. They naturalize well in Southern California gardens, because they can tolerate our dry spells. Singer also recommends South African harlequin flower (Sparaxis), crocus and species tulips (the wild ones from the Mediterranean, not the more common Dutch varieties that struggle here).

Bart O’Brien, co-author of “California Native Plants for the Garden” (Cachuma Press; Dec. 2005), combines flora from several Mediterranean climates in his Upland garden.

But he cautions that plants from elsewhere don’t tolerate drought as well as natives. “California’s climate is the most extreme,” he says. “We have the longest dry periods.” For late summer/early fall blooms, O’Brien, of Claremont’s Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, recommends California fuchsias.

But don’t expect most of these plants to be at their best at the end of summer. They’re accustomed to slowing growth or becoming dormant when it’s so hot and dry. Still, native/Mediterranean gardens aren’t just about flowers. Varied shades — especially grey-greens — and textures of foliage are part of their appeal. “On the East Coast, when it stops raining, they let their lawns go brown,” says Elisa. “They don’t water. We have to get used to that — that things do have a splendid season. You can’t control what happens in nature, and you live with it.”

Besides, many people retreat indoors in August. “In the heat of the summer, it’s not nice to be in my front yard,” O’Brien says. “Right now is more when I want to be in the yard doing things. And now is when there’s a lot of color.”

Urban Homestead

City Slickers Revive The Family Farm

By Ilsa Setziol 

From the May Issue of Arroyo Monthly 

You know you’re middle-aged when you get nostalgic for things you hated — or whose charms eluded you — as a child. Growing up in Eugene, Oregon, in the 1970s, I longed for Oreo cookies and Lucky Charms — anything with a brand name. Instead, I settled for mom’s zucchini bread baked with homegrown squash. My parents also grew carrots, artichokes, lettuce and rhubarb. Like many in town, they were a bit anti-establishment, but mostly, they gardened to save money.  

As I ripened, my taste improved, and homegrown and homemade food became more important, especially after the birth of my son. Now that my husband and I are underemployed, with more time on (and less money in) our hands, we’ve expanded our repertoire beyond a few tomatoes and too many zucchinis. 

 

And we’re not alone. In Southern California, and across the nation, there’s a mushrooming movement of people who grow their own food. “There’s a lot more interest in landscapes that do something — provide food or attract pollinators,” says Los Angeles horticulturist Lora Hall of Full Circle Gardening. “People want more than just a lawn.”The National Gardening Association says 43 million American households plan to plant edible gardens this year, a 19 percent increase over last year. And Frank Burkard of Pasadena’s Burkard Nurseries says sales of vegetable plants are up 30 percent.

 

Even the ultimate American household is in on the trend. In March, First Lady Michelle Obama and a group of schoolchildren planted the first White House kitchen garden since Eleanor Roosevelt’s World War II victory garden. “I want to make sure that our family, as well as the staff and all the people who come to the White House and eat our food, get access to really fresh vegetables and fruit,” Obama said. 

Some industrious folks are going even further. They’re turning their urban and suburban homes into something akin to an old-fashioned family farm. Many of these people also preserve some of their harvest, maybe brew their own beer and tinker with various DIY projects around the house. The gardens are organic; composting is de rigueur. When I met this new breed of urban homesteader, my ambitions — and notions of what’s possible — grew a lot bigger. 

 

In Eagle Rock, assistant set designer Peggy Casey created a sunny, intimate garden that proves edible plants can be aesthetically appealing and don’t need to be confined to homogeneous rows. In her west yard, lacy spring-green cilantro is flanked by jungle-green, broad-leafed bok choy; orange and yellow carrot tops peek out of rich brown soil.

 

Next to this raised bed, at ground level, vegetables mingle with ornamentals: Spinach neighbors deep-pink carnations, purple sage and blue-blossomed rosemary.

 

“There’s nothing more satisfying than growing your own food,” Casey says. “I base my meals on whatever is happening in my vegetable beds.” She cans extra heirloom tomatoes or chops them into a pesto that she freezes in cubes. She makes jelly and a sweet barbeque sauce from the fruit of her pink guava tree. Her husband, Erik Hillard, brews beer in their basement and hopes to dabble in wine one day.

Casey and I share an enthusiasm for fish emulsion fertilizer, I discover, but for the most part, she’s out of my league. She’s been gardening since she was a kid, having learned from her parents (she paid attention) and others at a communal plot in Santa Barbara during the 1970s. This spring, she is also growing brussels sprouts, snap peas, beets, broccoli, chard, onions and a variety of lettuces. “I try to seed everything myself,” she says. “so I save my seed.” 

I have abandoned several books about organic gardening, all written by people on the East Coast. Many advise starting vegetables and herbs such as peas and cilantro in late spring or summer. My cilantro bolted before I could harvest any. To solve the problem and grow more myself, I hired master gardener Marta Teegan of Homegrown Los Angeles last year to design a kitchen garden customized for our climate. 

 

Casey sympathizes and recommends two books (although she doesn’t use any of the pesticides or synthetic fertilizers they discuss in her organic garden): “Pat Welsh’s Southern California Gardening” (Chronicle Books; Dec. 1999) and “52 Weeks in A California Garden” by Robert 

Smaus (L.A. Times Syndicate Books; July 1996). Casey also likes a book that has fast become one of my favorites: “The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City” by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen (Process; June 2008). What this couple is doing is so cool, I had to meet them. 

 

When I arrive at their house in Edendale, between Echo Park and Silverlake, I notice there isn’t a lawn. The front and back yards are a tangle of edible and medicinal plants. In raised beds covering the street strip — that normally barren patch between the sidewalk and the street — sweet peas climb an obelisk-shaped trellis, and cabbages as big as basketballs unfurl veiny leaves. 

 

As we climb up their steep front yard, Knutzen points out several vegetables I recognize — asparagus, garlic, sorrel, fava beans and Swiss chard — as well as some I don’t, such as Jew’s mallow (a green popular in the Middle East) and cardoon (an aster with an artichoke-like flavor, common in colonial American gardens). Coyne and Knutzen also grow tree collards, artichokes and Jerusalem artichokes. “We really like perennial vegetables,” Knutzen explains, “because I’m lazy and don’t like to replant stuff constantly.” 

 

Elsewhere in the yard, a drip irrigation system waters plants most gardeners don’t nurture: dandelion, chickweed, purselain and stinging nettle. Coyne dries the nettles, then brews them into tea, and tosses chickweed into her stir-fries and salads. Europeans brought many of the plants we consider weeds to the Americas as potherbs — wild greens to toss in the stew pot. 

 The couple’s yard and their yellow 1920s bungalow are filled with DIY projects: a compost bin made from tires picked off the street, a solar oven cobbl

ed from cardboard and tinfoil, a homemade solar dehydrator, a gray-water system that pipes used laundry water to the garden and self-watering pots fashioned from plastic storage bins. 

 

I’m curious how this all came about. Coyne is a former administrative director of the Museum of Jurassic Technology, dedicated to obscure fields of knowledge, and Knutzen is a program coordinator for the neighboring Center for Land Use Interpretation. When they bought their home a decade ago, the couple couldn’t muster enough interest to start a lawn and didn’t want to futz with flowers. “Why grow a lawn when we could grow something useful?” Knutzen says. “I suspect our carbon footprint is quite low,” adds Coyne, “but that was never our intention. It just so happens that a commonsensical style of living is, by default, green living.” 

 

In Pasadena, the Dervaes family — Jules and his three adult children — grow about 6,000 pounds of produce a year on a fifth of an acre north of the Foothill Freeway. They supply local restaurants and document their lifestyle on the website pathtofreedom.com. They also brew their own biodiesel, power their house with solar panels and bake in a cob oven — a stove fueled by scraps of wood and twigs from their property.

 

The family declined to be interviewed for this story. Spokeswoman Janice Bakke said, “They are the original urban homesteaders” and didn’t want to participate in a story that included the authors of “The Urban Homestead,” with whom they have a dispute. She said the Dervaeses claim ownership of the term “urban homestead” and believe Coyne and Knutzen have infringed upon it. Knutzen and Coyne say neither the family nor its representatives have been in contact with them. 

 

The Dervaeses are also involved in another organic gardening trend: keeping livestock in the city. They tend chickens, ducks and a couple of goats. Livestock are useful for organic gardeners, who don’t apply synthetic chemicals and rely on manures and compost to supply nitrogen to their plants. 

 

After years of pleading, Casey has convinced her spouse to help her build a henhouse and chicken run. Soon, three hens — no roosters — will move in. In addition to better compost, Casey is looking forward to fresher eggs with less cholesterol. 

 

Coyne and Knutzen own four hens and give tips on raising ducks, pigeons, quail and rabbits in the city. “No! We’re not getting rabbits!” That’s my husband yelling into his cell phone when I inform him that rabbit poop is especially high in nitrogen, and, by the way, our son loves bunnies. My son will have to settle for pet worms. (Worm castings are another popular organic fertilizer.)

 

Back at the Coyne-Knutzen homestead, the couple ushers me into their kitchen, where the cupboards brim with mason jars. Coyne pulls a few off the shelves — homemade marmalade made with a neighbor’s grapefruits, lacto-

fermented (brined) pickles, apple cider vinegar, pickled okra and hot peppers, sun-dried tomatoes and honey from their beekeeping club.

 

As I wrap up my visit, I wonder aloud if my husband and I could keep on top of so many projects. “We don’t suggest people try to do all these things,” Knutzen says. “We’d just be happy if someone did one or two to start out.” Coyne hopes people will feel more empowered, one project at a time. “Once you’ve mastered one thing and it’s integrated into your routine, then you add something else, so your skill set builds,” she says. “And slowly your house is transformed.”

 

I take these words to heart. Within a few weeks, I’ve cracked some new garden books and sprouted some basil, tomato and pumpkin seeds. And I’m still surveying my yard for any promising patch of open ground. 

Seeds of Change

Sowing a Green Movement in Glendale

From the January issue of Verdugo Monthly

Glendale may soon experience a new growth spurt. Not more shopping malls, but vegetables, fruit trees and flowers cropping up on vacant lots. The city — at the urging of mayor John Drayman — is partnering with a fledgling environmental group to plant at least one community garden. “The idea is to have gardens at properties the city isn’t using,” says Drayman, “And to provide a place where people — especially in highly populated areas with many multi-family dwellings — can walk to, and plant flowers, fruit trees, produce.”

The test case is an 11,000-square-foot vacant lot on Monterey Road, next to the Glendale Avenue off-ramp of the 134 freeway. On a recent morning, 22-year-old Alek Bartrosouf scoops up a crumpled soda can from the barren earth. “This is a house lot, abandoned since 1976. It’s owned by the city. Every now and then city employees clean out the weeds and the trash.”

A brick wall and a few palm trees are all that separate the lot from the hissing freeway. If all goes according to plan, this pocket of blight could become a verdant refuge: 20 or so neighbors would claim plots; others would be invited to workshops on gardening, water conservation and composting. The community garden would also feature a tool shed, fruit trees, and a demonstration garden displaying native and Mediterranean plants, watered with drip irrigation.

A floral perfume and the sweet-spicy aroma of sage might help to mask the gritty, metallic freeway smell. Other natives, such as California lilac and the red-berried toyon bush, would likely attract birds, butterflies and bees.

Bartrosouf sees it as a place to nurture environmental awareness: “What a community garden does, is it gets people together. They get to grow their own food, which is environmentally friendly. We won’t use pesticides. We’re also hoping to have a pergola that’s solar-powered, to feed power back to the grid.”

Bartrosouf grew up in Glendale, and credits a teacher at Clark Magnet High School in La Crescenta with sparking his interest in environmental issues. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz, he returned home. “The first thing I noticed,” he recalls, “is there are no recycle bins in public areas. In Santa Cruz there are.”Despite his passion for the environment, Bartrosouf looks more Glendale than Santa Cruz. He’s clean-cut, not pierced or tattooed, and — with the exception of a small turquoise bracelet — dresses fairly conservatively. “I know when to be professional,” he says.

Two years ago, Bartrosouf reconnected with childhood friend Ana Khachatrian, a recent USC graduate. Through a friend, they met another Glendale native of Armenian descent, Garen Nadir. The three were impressed by how other Southland cities, such as Santa Monica and West Hollywood, were responding to environmental problems, and decided Glendale needed a green push from the grassroots. So they launched Coalition for a Green Glendale.

While trolling around the city’s web site, they learned about its Adopt-a-Block program. When they inquired about it, a city staffer suggested they start a garden. Bartrosouf, Khachatrian and Nadir didn’t have green thumbs, but they saw the opportunity to provide environmental education, especially on water conservation. So they signed on and dubbed the project an “eco-community garden.”

One day when the trio was handing out reusable shopping bags at the Montrose Harvest Market, they met landscape architect Guillaume Lemoine. The middle-aged French émigré became their fourth member and designer of the Monterey Road community garden. 

Green Glendale and the city hope to make the place ready for gardeners in April or May. Fifteen people have already applied for plots. Among them is 81-year-old Beatrice Crain. “I’m interested because I love plants,” she says in Spanish. “In my house, my plants are my children.” Crain lives in an apartment. Her actual son, Raphael Cardona, says she has small potted plants on each of the 14 steps outside her home, but: “She’s running out of space. The landlord told her, ‘you really can’t have all these in an apartment.’ So she’s looking for a piece of land where she can freely grow a few tomatoes, some flowers...” “I have some seeds,” she beams, “Some very special peach seeds.”

The elderly and children are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries of the eco-community garden, says Glen Dake, board member of the Los Angeles Community Garden Council. “[They] have a place to go. Elderly gardeners develop a better social network. Kids have a place to make mud pies. Among children, it develops stewardship — digging in the dirt, seeing bugs, eating vegetables that they see growing.”

Glendale Mayor John Drayman hopes the garden will also boost morale. “In an economy like this where folks are feeling the pinch, this becomes more important. For many residents who don’t have the economic wherewithal, they start to feel there’s nothing we can do to help ourselves. This is something you can do to directly affect your situation.”

The garden might also improve the participants’ health: A study of a community garden in Pacoima found gardeners there ate more fruits and vegetables than neighbors who didn’t grow food.

Coalition for a Green Glendale wants to raise $50,000 — in cash and, especially, donated materials — for the project. So far the group has secured only a $5,000 grant, but it expects the city to contribute another $5,000 or more. If they fall short, Green Glendale could scale back plans and get started for far less, says LA Community Garden Council’s Glen Dake. Still, it’s a big project for a group of four volunteers.

City managers are eager for Green Glendale to build more community gardens. They’re already proposing a site on Geneva Street. “We’re getting a lot of support from the city,” says co-founder Bartrosouf, “Most people we’ve spoken with are encouraging for our coalition to get out there and do the work.”

To learn more or get involved visit Green-Glendale.org or lagardencouncil.org

Less In the Season of Excess

Tips for a Green Holiday

From the December Issue of Verdugo Monthly

My husband says some day my mouth is going to get me killed. It’s the not profanities or my short fuse, but the little tidbits of neighborly advice I dispense. The way I tell people they should consider adjusting their sprinklers so they don’t irrigate the street, or use their leaf litter as mulch instead of blasting leaves (and pollution from the blower) around their property.

The end could come this holiday season. Many of my neighbors launch an all-out blitz: every shrub blinks; giant (electric-powered) blow-up Santas perch on roofs; Christmas trees glow around the clock. Entire North Poles are erected without irony. (Lighting my yard; melting the Arctic.) Garbage cans burst with things that shouldn’t be trashed. I don’t want to deprive people of their holiday pleasures. I just want to inject a little moderation. California waste officials say Americans throw away a million extra tons of trash a week from Turkey Day to the New Year.

An easy solution is to apply the conservation mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle—in that order. Buying sparingly means less energy consumed, fewer pollutants produced and resources depleted. Ditto for reusing; plus it keeps junk out of landfills. Recycling is great, but it takes energy to reformulate materials. Still, by all means recycle, and buy recycled products.

Looking for a little grinchy sympathy, I called a few people who have simplified their holidays. They left me less cranky — even inspired.

’Tis the Gift to Be Simple

Robert Lilienfeld, the stingy but sharp mind behind Use-Less-Stuff.com says, “The earlier you shop, and the more you plan, the more likely what you buy is something people will like. [The problem is] the last-minute trip where you buy whatever you see.” Lilienfeld likes experiential gifts. This year he’s giving his teenaged daughters tickets to the musical Wicked. He also recommends ball game tickets, and iTunes cards. “If you think about your holiday memories from when you were a kid,” he says, “what you remember are the experiences you had. Grandma drank too much eggnog. What you ate for dinner. ”

Last year, Los Angeles journalist and mom Julia Posey asked her family to skip the “stuff” and give memberships. She was delighted with the result: Free admission to the L.A. Zoo, the L.A. County Natural History Museum and Descanso Garden. Posey has simplified her family life and documents it on her blog, Ramshackle Solid. She makes lovely homemade gifts. She recently bought plain wooden nesting dolls and painted them with animals her son has seen at home and on hikes. “Kids don’t need a lot,” she reminded me. “You want to give them less, so their imagination has space to play.” She inspired me to sew finger puppets. For this, I’m using both naturally dyed wool felt and synthetic felt made of recycled plastic. The tiny bird puppets will also double as holiday ornaments. 

When you buy tangible gifts, pay attention to the amount of packaging. Is a tiny doodad encased in yards of plastic? If so, look for a better choice. Martin Schlageter with the L.A. environmental group Coalition for Clean Air advises, “Look at product labels. Look at where something is made, and if it has recycled or organic content.” He tries to buy things made locally, because of the pollution generated by transporting goods. Schlageter also evaluates durability: “Pay a little more for something that’s going to last.”

It’s a Re-Wrap

In the 1970s, my family was either a conservation pioneer — or just thrifty: We always opened gifts carefully and reused the paper, bows, and boxes. I still do. Use-Less-Stuff guy Robert Lilienfeld says the key is to have separate, marked boxes ready to collect the scraps as people unwrap. Don’t bother to wrap the really big stuff, put a bow on it or hide it. “Especially for little kids, they don’t care,” says Lilienfeld. “No one is ever going to say in therapy at age 35, ‘I wish my mom had wrapped gifts better.’” Get creative. You can use brown paper bags, old comic books, and scraps of fabric. 

Similarly, my friend Julie Wolfson offers this Chanukah tip: “If you are determined to give your kids a present every night, don't waste wrapping on all of them. Buy or make one gift bag for each kid, and put her gifts in it each night. My kids love to see what's in their ‘Chanukah bag.’”

To Tree or Not to Tree? 
Despite my reputation, I certainly wouldn’t want to deprive anyone of a Christmas tree. Burbank and other cities will mulch them. To cut pollution from trucks that haul the trees away, consider chopping up at least the fine branches at home and using them to mulch flowerbeds or improve your compost pile.

A couple of years ago I tried a Christmas rosemary bush — with mixed results. It was cheap, easy and smelled great. The idea was, after the holiday, I’d plant it or cook with it. It graced my Christmas day, but died before I could reuse it. Nevertheless, it’s a lot easier to chop up — and make mulch or compost from — a small shrub than a large tree. Some years, I’ve just decorated a few boughs, placed on the mantle.

For the trimmings, LED holiday lights — which use a lot less energy and last longer — are now widely available. The bulbs also fit some electric menorahs, says Liore Milgrom-Elcott of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life. “If it’s big enough,” she adds, “you can use compact fluorescents (CFLs).”

Adan Ortega, board member of the open space group Amigos de los Rios, decorates and reuses a tree made of recycled plastic. He says, “My preference is to celebrate the way Mary, Joseph and Jesus did: with humility. I prefer my son’s hand-made decorations.”

Waste Not

To prevent wasted food, Robert Lilienfeld advises a little planning: “You know there will be leftover turkey. Think what you want to do with it before you shop. Look at it as an ingredient for the next couple of meals. If your family loves soup, buy the ingredients at the same time.” Pay particular attention to poultry, meat, and dairy. It takes a lot of resources — and puts a lot of greenhouses gases into the air — to produce that protein at the top of the food chain.

Atonement

Buying carbon offsets has become a fashionable way to unburden the consuming conscience. Why not undertake your own mitigation? To start, you can pay a junk-mail – removal service, such as Green Dimes, to remove your name from advertiser and catalogue mailing lists. Guilty of buying too many electronic gadgets? Make amends for the hazardous waste they create (when discarded) by investing in a battery charger and rechargeable batteries. You can even buy solar-powered battery chargers. Be sure to donate unwanted toys, housewares and clothes to charity. Many people here in southern California would appreciate things I see stuffed in trashcans.

If you must have Las Vegas on your lawn: unplug cell phone chargers, computers, and other electronics when you’re not using them. They draw down power even when they don’t need it. 

Saving energy will save you money. So embrace your inner Grinch. Being lean and green is a good strategy for our times.

Land of Plenty

GROWING GREEN

from the October 2008 issue of Verdugo Monthly

A personal vegetable garden is a delicious alternative to the typical suburban lawn
By Ilsa Setziol

About five years ago, I began to suspect my food qualified for more frequent flyer miles than I did. As an environmental reporter, I was already spending a lot of time contemplating the consequences of shipping, trucking and flying goods long distances: communities awash in diesel soot, and vast amounts of carbon dioxide heating up the planet.

So I started looking for food grown locally, paying attention to what was in season. But it was still a gamble: would any of the pricey peaches ripen, or would they all rot before getting tasty?
Then my husband decided to plant tomatoes at our San Gabriel home. They were delicious. We had pizza with sweet cherry and pear tomatoes, fresh salsa and endless pasta sauce. After years of regarding plants as something to whack with hedge trimmers, suddenly my husband was interested in growing them. He wanted corn, peppers, potatoes…watermelon. But all I could see was oceans of water spewing out the hose.

Was it possible to grow fruits and vegetables and still keep my conscience green? Does growing your food at home make sense in a state where our water often travels farther than our food? A good person to query was Peter Gleick. He studies water and climate at The Pacific Institute, an Oakland-based research group. He says “It’s true there’s an expense to our pocketbooks and environment of moving water great distances in California, basically from the Sierra Nevada to the coast and southern California, but I think in the end, the idea of individuals using some of the water…to grow food on personal gardens is a pretty good idea. And what makes it a better idea is if we can remove lawn, and use the water that we’re now using to grow lawn, to grow some our food in our personal gardens.”

Diverting water from the Sierra can damage habitat for fish and other wildlife; it also contributes to global warming because it takes energy to pump water, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Indeed, state officials estimate nearly 20 percent of all power used in California goes to transporting and treating water.

I thought I’d better check with an environmentalist. “If you do it right it, [kitchen gardens do] make sense,” Andy Lipkis, President of TreePeople, told me. “You can work with heavily mulched soil, so you’re not losing a lot of water to transpiration. You can water with drip irrigation, so you cut down on as much as 60 to 80 percent of your water use, because you’re putting drippers right where your roots are.”

I’ve already installed a drip system, but I’m interested in another of Lipkis’ suggestions, using graywater—recycling water that would otherwise zip down the drain of your sink, tub or washer. He says, basically, you can hook a hose up to your washer, and extend it to your yard, or have it fill buckets. If you go this route, you’ll want to get up to speed on local graywater ordinances and garden-friendly detergents. A good place to start is graywater guru Art Ludwig’s website: graywater.net

To get some additional tips on making a kitchen garden greener, I asked horticulturalist Lili Singer to visit my yard. Wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat, she bent over to watch a bee tunnel into a large yellow zucchini flower. “If you take out grass or azalea or some other water-needy thing, and put in a vegetable garden, you may be using the same amount of water, but you’re getting more out of it,” says Singer. Replacing your lawn with a variety of flowering plants will also boost the diversity of birds and bugs in your yard, she adds.

Next to a slender oak, Singer watches goldfinches glean seeds from bloomed-out bachelor buttons. A mourning dove moseys among the California poppies. As she surveys my garden, she says “I’ve noticed in your yard, you’re not a neat freak — in a good way. You haven’t ripped off every seed head, and what that does is allow lots of birds to come in and eat the seeds and the insects that invade the plants.”

Master gardener Marta Teegan, of Homegrown Los Angeles, says another good way to cut back on chemicals and water is a technique called companion planting. One example is grouping tomato, parsley and carrot plants together. “Tomatoes hate wet feet,” she explains, “carrots aerate the soil for them. And the parsley fends off a whole host of pests. Tomatoes shade the carrots and parsley, which can’t take too much sun.” Squash is also a good companion because the tiny spines on its stems and leaves keep bugs at bay.

Both Teegan and horticulturalist Lili Singer recommend feeding your plants with homemade compost. “The plants don’t know the difference between organic and synthetic fertilizer,” said Singer, “but the soil does.” And so does the planet, according to the environmental group Californians Against Waste. The group’s Scott Smithline explains that when you apply synthetic fertilizers, the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide escapes into the air. Nitrogen pollution is also more likely to flow off your yard and into waterways.

Composting your waste fights global warming in other significant ways. When food and yard waste rot in the landfill, they emit methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. The same waste composted produces very little methane, because the scraps are exposed to oxygen. Home composting also cuts down on truck trips to the dump. Horticulturalist Lili Singer says gardeners who compost are meeting the environmental goal of sustainability. ”If you really do the whole thing from start to finish and start with your own seeds and with your own compost that you’ve made from your kitchen waste, and you’re not using fuels, burning up rubber on highway to get to market — if everything you’re doing starts and ends on your property — that is the ideal minimization of the carbon footprint.”

This year my husband and I grew three kinds of tomatoes, too much zucchini, some yellow squash, green beans, watermelon, mandarin oranges, limes, basil, sage, oregano, rosemary, and marjoram. Next year there will be more!

Sparking the Fires

Nature-loving Southern Californians are endangering the landscapes they love
By Ilsa Setziol
Excerpted from Verdugo Monthly

For many people it’s the dream home: a place tucked into the foothills where you can dart out the back door to escape the city. You can clear the smog from your lungs, inhale the spicy-sweet, dusty fragrance of the hillside, and hear the tap, tap, tap of a woodpecker working an oak tree.
But this version of the good life is imperiling some of rarest ecosystems on earth. Southern California is considered a biodiversity hotspot, a place with many unique species that are threatened with extinction. Much of the habitat has been bulldozed and what remains is threatened by another side effect of civilization: fire.
“More people on the landscape has meant more fires,” says Jon Keeley, a research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). “Today we have more fire ignition than we ever had historically. And humans account for 95 to 99 percent of all the fires we see in this region.”
California has the largest so-called “urban-wildland interface”—areas where human habitation cuts into wilderness—in the nation. That means more power lines that can snap, more roadsides where catalytic converters can ignite grasses, more barbeques. No foothill community should consider itself protected.
On a balmy fall morning, botanist Ileene Anderson of the Center for Biological Diversity hikes a section of the Verdugo Mountains near Burbank. She notes that two important plant communities intermingle there: evergreen shrubs collectively known as chaparral, and an even rarer group called coastal sage scrub. “Coastal sage scrub used to be widespread, but it’s now one of our most imperiled habitats,” she says. “Because it grows in desirable foothill areas, it’s been heavily impacted by development.” Anderson points out some characteristic plants: fragrant purple and white sages; buckwheat still displaying dried, rust-red blossoms; and the yellow daisies of California brittlebush.
Examining a hillside that burned a few years back, Anderson is pleased to see new growth sprouting from the base of charred shrubs. “But if they burn again in a few years it will set them back; there will be less energy in the root mass for them to resprout,” she says. “The natural fire rate here is estimated at once every 50 to 120 years. If fires burn every 20 years, it could eliminate them.” Especially vulnerable are plants that regenerate primarily by seed, such as California lilac (Ceanothus). “If the young plants are killed before they drop enough seeds, ultimately no seeds are left to produce future generations,” says Anderson.
Frequent fires will benefit some plants. “What’s going to come back are invasive annual weeds,” says Rick Halsey, director of the California Chaparral Institute. “You’ll get acres of grasses.” He notes with chagrin that these non-natives are highly flammable.
Biologists are beginning to document swaths of southern California that have been converted from native shrublands to fields of Mediterranean grasses and other weeds. These new landscapes aren’t good habitat for wildlife, and they’re vulnerable to erosion.
So Jon Keeley of the USGS was alarmed to learn that, in San Diego County alone, 60,000 to 70,000 acres that were torched in 2003 had burned again last fall.
If you’re an outdoorsy type and inclined to reading the interpretive signs at parks, we’ve probably just confused you. Haven’t those rangers been telling people that forests need more fire? Indeed, in many parts of the American West—especially conifer forests, such as the one around Lake Arrowhead—people have been all too successful at suppressing natural fires. It’s sparked a different ecological problem: overstocked forests of dry bark-beetle-infested trees. For most of the Southland, though, the challenge is too many human-caused fires.
If you’re not discouraged already, contemplate this: Scientists expect global warming to exacerbate the problem. They project that warming temperatures will increase the frequency and severity of fires in the American West. Some say it’s already happening.
Biologist Mike Allen of UC Riverside studies how ecosystems respond to human interference. Much of his research is conducted at the James Reserve near Idyllwild, a graceful spot where wild azaleas and rare lemon lilies bloom alongside a small creek. Western Bluebirds flit among ponderosa pines. Allen says the destruction of native plant communities isn’t just an aesthetic issue. “It’s really a loss of a functioning system that cleans the air and water, and provides food.” He says fire, combined with development, pollution, and invasive species, is putting tremendous stress on local habitats. His big worry is a tipping point: “Ecosystems collapse in nonlinear ways. It’s one of those Jenga things. You can pull out pieces, but all of a sudden you pull out the last piece, and the whole thing tumbles quickly.”
Many scientists say projected population growth is the looming threat—for wildlands and the people who live near them. Already, says Keeley, “Population growth has outstripped the ability of firefighters to protect people.”
Keeley recommends joining a local chapter of the Fire Safe Council. “Homeowners need to think ahead of time, to ensure their community has sufficient [brush] clearance to reduce the likelihood flames will move in. But they need to be aware that’s not enough. In San Diego they cleared. All clearance gets you is reduced fuels to allow firefighters to get in. But often there aren’t enough firefighters.” Strong winds can make it impossible to stop a fire, and new developments are often built on steeper—more dangerous—terrain.
Keeley says municipal planners should be much more conservative about where they permit new development. Halsey agrees: “The [2006] Esperanza fire: That house [where four firefighters died] should never have been built. At the top of steep canyons you get unstoppable waves of fire. The houses literally blow up.” Halsey watched the recent Witch fire in San Diego County devour his neighbors’ homes, narrowly sparing his. He says the fire didn’t die down until the wind ceased.
The Glendale Fire Department has these tips for homeowners: make sure your sprinklers are working, remove weeds and cut grass regularly, dispose of dead vegetation, and don’t place plants too close to structures or eaves. Also, store flammable liquids with care, clear debris from your roof, and create a home escape plan.
Still, making a home safer doesn’t erase its environmental footprint. In the Verdugos, botanist Ileene Anderson strode down a fire road, hopped into her little yellow truck, and headed west along Sunset Canyon Drive. She stopped to check out a cluster of stucco houses perched on a steep ridge. Homeowners had diligently cleared vegetation, leaving only a few buckwheat and Lauren sumac plants. “There’s nothing natural except a few token species that have been able to survive,” she laments. “Brush clearance definitely creates an ecological problem. So do firebreaks; they are highways for invasive plants. Sadly, if you value proximity to the natural world, you have to blitz what you sought to be near.”