Defensive Gardening

Did Succulents Save Her Home?
From the Los Angeles Times, November 8, 2007
By Debra Lee Baldwin

(excerpt)

Gary Lyons, curator of the desert collection at the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, is outspoken about his desire to see succulents used as perimeter plantings for homes in areas.

"After the Altadena fire in 1993, I could see that agaves, aloes and opuntia had not burned, but rather had cooked," Lyons recalls. "They can't carry a fire. I wondered why there was no code requirement or law that requires developers and residents to use succulents in high fire areas. Why should taxpayers shoulder the firefighting costs of a hillside development's incendiary landscape?"

Why, indeed. Homeowners adjacent to wild lands may not realize it, but the plants with which they routinely surround their dwellings are infamously flammable (among them, pines, junipers, bougainvillea, flax and grasses). Basically, anything woody and twiggy is a potential haystack, ready to be ignited by the tiniest ember -- especially in autumn, especially during a record-setting drought.

California native plants are wonderfully resilient when it comes to wildfires, but it's not because they don't burn; some of the most common natives such as the aptly named greasewood (Adenostoma fasciculatum) are highly flammable. Fire is part of the chaparral's natural cycle, enabling seeds to burst open and fresh green growth to take the place of old. This makes natives admirable -- ingenious, even -- but not, unless they're fleshy, fire-retardant.

"There is some confusion about the terms 'drought-tolerant,' 'native plants,' and 'fire-retardant plants,' " Lyons explains. "Fire-retardant plants vis-à-vis cactus and succulents stand apart from drought tolerant and natives. A native plant garden in the chaparral is like growing Roman candles. Drought tolerant may not be much better."

credibility counts

To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.

-Edward R Murrow (1908-1965)

Saving the Saguaros

Feds to use computer chips to foil cactus thieves

from CNN.com

TUCSON, Arizona (AP) -- Anyone thinking of swiping a stately saguaro cactus from the desert could soon be hauling off more than just a giant plant. National Park Service officials plan to imbed microchips in Arizona's signature plant to protect them from thieves who rip them from the desert to sell them to landscapers, nurseries and homeowners.

Saguaros are unique to the Sonoran Desert, 120,000 square miles covering portions of Arizona, California and the northern Mexican states of Baja California and Sonora. They're majestic giants that can grow to heights of 50 feet, sprout gaggles of arms and weigh several tons. They can take 50 years to flower and 70 years before sprouting an arm.

Plant pilferers typically target the relatively young and small specimens in the 4- to 7-foot range -- which are probably 30 to 50 years old. They typically can fetch $1,000 or more.

giddy with excitement

welcome back, rain

cleansing by fire

“The feelings right now are difficult to describe. One of the hazards of monasticism throughout the centuries is we become attached to what we have or where we are. This is simply a reminder that what we are called to is not our stuff. This is a cleansing by fire.”

-Brother Brown, Mount Calvary Monastery

Monks Turn to Reflection With Monastery in Ruins from NYTimes.com

smoke on the water

2008 Wildfires
(photo El Porto, Manhattan Beach CA)

callibrate your watches, ready, set, GO!

finally today

no nailpolish...just sayin'

like a tea party, but less fun

small world after all...

"There has been a huge increase in financial globalization just in the last few years...this has made the global financial system a lot more tightly linked, so that big economies are now experiencing the kind of contagion previously associated with emerging markets caught up in the 1997-1998 crisis. We’re all Brazilians now."

-Paul Krugman, NY Times blog

Image by Disney stylist, Mary Blair

777 points in a day

from ww.toothpastefordinner.com

the real winner of friday's debate

well hello again, mr. buffett

Mr. Buffett has long had a fascination with Goldman and first visited the firm when he was 10 with his father, according to someone familiar with the matter.

-from "Buffett to Invest $5bn in Goldman" on http://www.wsj.com/

success during crisis, how?

"Minimizing subprime lending is a reflection of a broader cultural difference at the bank, which is ultimately the bigger factor in the company's success" from sfgate.com 9/21/08

wheel of future

"Both the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) and the Space program are vital if the human race is not to stultify and eventually die out. Together they cost less than one tenth of a per cent of world GDP. If the human race can not afford this, then it doesn't deserve the epithet 'human'."

- Stephen Hawking, Sept 2008

nice timing, hank

The Fannie And Freddie Bailout, In 10 Easy Links from NPR.org

missing you terribly

"The massive, frustrated energies of a mainly young, disillusioned electorate that has long since abandoned the idea that we all have a duty to vote. This is like being told you have a duty to buy a new car, but you have to choose immediately between a Ford and a Chevy. "

-Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, Hunter S Thompson (1937-2005)

the big picture delivered in under an hour

This American Life (radio) 355: The Giant Pool of Money

Prologue.
Ira talks with NPR business and economics correspondent about two gatherings he attended. One at the Ritz Carlton and one at a community college in Brooklyn. The first was an awards dinner for finance professionals who created the mortgage based financial instruments that nearly brought down the global economic system. The other was a non-profit conference for people facing foreclosure. Ira explains that today's show lays out how the finance guys and the people facing foreclosure are connected by a chain of middlemen, and that together, they all brought about the current housing and credit crisis. (4 minutes)