The Dry Garden: Into the tall grass, tentatively
Posted on | December 9, 2011 | No Comments
There is nothing lovelier than tall ornamental grasses, backlit and waving in a breeze. Even vacant lots can produce stands of car-crash-inducing beauty. So when gardeners hope to capture some of that lyrical action for their own homes, it’s logical to assume that all one need do is stop mowing the lawn. Alas, that would be wrong. Harnessing the tousled romance of ornamental grasses (and plants that look like these grasses) is so hard that even experienced horticulturists factor generous time and space for trial and error into their approaches before they have, in effect, allowed the right plant to do its stuff in the right place.
Click here to keep reading this week’s Dry Garden in the Los Angeles Times on landscaping with native ornamental grasses.
Elden Hughes and Cadiz
Posted on | December 5, 2011 | 1 Comment
If it were possible to raise Elden Hughes from the dead, the release today of the draft environmental impact report on the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project would do it. A recipient of the Sierra Club’s John Muir Award for his work protecting California deserts, Hughes — who died on Sunday in Joshua Tree — was an integral part of the drive that in 2002 temporarily defeated a scheme by Cadiz, Inc to mine an ancient reserve of groundwater near the Mojave National Preserve.
For background on the Cadiz project, click here. To hear Hughes on KPCC’s Larry Mantle Show after the Cadiz project was revived in 2009, here. Do, while reading, be sure to click here for a fine obituary on Hughes by the LA Times’s Louis Sahagun.
The Dry Garden: After the storm
Posted on | December 3, 2011 | 2 Comments
After the storm, we have no coroners, no priests for big trees. There will no autopsies, no last rites for the shredded jacaranda and more than 50 damaged trees at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden in Arcadia, the fallen oaks of Fair Oaks Avenue or mangled magnolia trees of Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena. Ceremony, if it can be called that, will involve gas-fired buzz saws and insurance adjusters.
So how do we mark what happened? For that matter, what did happen? And what, ultimately, will we make of the night the trees fell?
Click here to keep reading in the Los Angeles Times about the massive tree losses across the Los Angeles foothills during record winds last Wednesday night.
Giving thanks for wattle
Posted on | November 18, 2011 | No Comments
My hand aches. My back aches. There is no end of aching in sight. What a wonderful year. As Thanksgiving approaches, gratitude runs deep. I am thankful for a remarkably generous rain year, for California poppies, for sunflowers, local horse-stable manure so good that the guy who composts it calls it “craptonite,” for the bare-root plum tree that turned out to be a quince, for lemon-soaked quince wedges in stir fries, for the inventor of ibuprofen. This year, above all, I’m thankful for the things that I used to throw away.
Click here to keep reading in this week’s LA Times Dry Garden column about the wonders of salvaged wood, perfect for making wattle fences. 
Mr Villaraigosa, rip out that lawn
Posted on | November 16, 2011 | 2 Comments
Occupy LA sign on tree, LA City Hall, October, 2011. No nails used. Photo: Emily Green
Whatever the accomplishments of Occupy L.A. when it finally decamps — or gets evicted — from around City Hall, one positive achievement is already clear: It has killed the lawn.
The Times’ editorial board has harrumphed about the taxpayer expense of replacing one of downtown’s “rare green spaces,” and it worries that the “majestic figs” are at risk. Last week, the Department of Recreation and Parks sent an aggrieved letter to the mayor about signs nailed to trees, broken sprinkler heads and compacted soil. The nails and compacted soil are unfortunate. But really, Rec and Parks is missing the point. Occupy L.A. has given City Hall the chance to walk its talk.
Click here to keep reading my call for climate-appropriate landscaping around LA City Hall in the op-ed pages of the Los Angeles Times. If bile is your cup of tea, do proceed to the comments.
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