Just say, “Hell, no.”

Pampas grass invades Encinas Creek in San Diego County. Source: California Invasive Plant Council. Click on the image to the taken to Cal IPC's "Don't Plant a Pest" site.

The environment writer’s environment writer, Ilsa Setziol, has this piece on invasive plants in the new edition of High Country News.

To everyone who ever admired Mexican feather grass, read it.

To Ilsa, who in addition to producing Rambling LA also contributes to this site, the Los Angeles Times, KQED’s Climate Watch and public radio, how nice to see you in HCN.

Word of mouth: Garden blogs

There are many wonderful blogs on gardening, however, this list, under construction and by no means complete, focuses on those that concentrate on dry and native gardening in California. If yours fits the bill but is not in the list and you would like it to be, please don’t be offended and please do notify me at emily.green [@] mac.com. For organizations such as the Theodore Payne Foundation specializing in native gardening, click here and for events such as classes, walks and exhibits, here.

Aprille’s SoCal Gardening by a landscape designer who loves roses and beneficial insects

BeGarden by landscape designer Janis Hatlestad

Debra Lee Baldwin (succulents)

Dirt du Jour by Northern Californian garden writers Cindy McNatt and Charlotte Germane

Breathing Treatment by Brent Morgan, smart notes of California garden design

Cactus Blog

California Native Landscape Design (blog of Rob Moore)

Cal-Natives Landscape

The Earthworm’s Lair by Owen

Western datebook: January on the half shell

With warm wishes for 2010, a few events of note:

January 5: “Borderlands,” a show from the International League of Conservation Photographers studying the impact of the border fence between the US and Mexico, G2 Gallery, Venice, California, through February 7

January 13: Southern California Shells and Beaches from Prehistoric Fossils to Modern Seashore Life
with Scott Rugh,
Collections Manager, Invertebrate Fossils, San Diego Natural History Museum, Casa Romantica Cultural Center Lecture Series, San Clemente

January 13: State of the Bay Report and Conference, Bay Restoration Commission, Stewards of Santa Monica Bay, Los Angeles

January 14: G’day Australia Week 2010 Water Policy Forum, Los Angeles

January 27-29: Climate Change Impacts on Water, policy conference with Jane Lubchenco, Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Washington DC

Chance of Rain will begin publishing

High good, low bad: Mead in January 2012

Notes about Colorado River snowpack in January 2012, Lake Mead and public comment on the DEIR being circulated on the Cadiz Valley groundwater mining project.

The future of forests

 

Giant Sequoias at Redwood Mountain, Kings Canyon National Park, CA, in the largest grove of this species. Photo courtesy of John Evarts, Cachuma Press

Ronald M. Lanner has explored the forests of the Western United States for 50 years. In the course of this, and in devoting five of his six books to the region’s trees, he has revealed that no where else on the planet has the same diversity of conifers, be it the oldest (bristlecone pines) or the tallest (redwoods) or the biggest (sequoias).

So Chance of Rain asked environment reporter Ilsa Setziol to interview Lanner on the future of the region’s timbered ranges in the face of climate change. Her discussion with the author of “The Pinon Pine,” “Trees of the Great Basin,”The Conifers of California,” “Made for Each Other: A Symbiosis of Birds and Pines,” and “The Bristlecone Book

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