Beyond green

Posted on | August 17, 2009 | 1 Comment

Salvia apiana in August

Salvia apiana, or white sage, in August

FROM TODAY’s Los Angeles Times op-ed pages:

YOU KNOW it’s the silly season when a member of the Los Angeles City Council weighs in on the importance of green lawns during a drought, as the 12th District’s Greig Smith did several weeks ago. Yet the council member’s motion, which sought to reduce watering times but increase days of the week when watering could be done, exemplifies the frustration of homeowners across Southern California. “For more than a decade, we have had a policy of greening, not browning Los Angeles,” Smith said.

It’s poignant, this bid to find a water-savvy way to keep Los Angeles green. It cuts straight to the heart of the problem with the way we garden. It’s color. We, in common with Smith, have been taught that green is good and brown is bad. In fact, the opposite is true. In the high heat of summer, brown is good, and green, at least unlikely shows of it, is bad.

Add to that: Tan is good; yellow is good; orange, maroon, gray, aquamarine are all good too, for those are the colors of the buckwheats, sages, manzanitas and deer and canyon grasses of our native chaparral. Those are the colors of our native flora as its spring greens give way to the infinitely more subtle plant palette of California in summertime.

…. To read more from the Los Angeles Times, click here.

Comments

One Response to “Beyond green”

  1. admin
    August 19th, 2009 @ 12:21 pm

    Received by E-mail from anonymous:

    While some people might enjoy having brown, or other color lawns, i have a very green one. That is right, i use as much water as i want to keep it green. No i don’t give a crap about the law or water conservation. City council can do all the talk they want and ladwp can do all the talk they want,as they don’t have the resources to enforce water conservation law

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