Oh, thanks for joining us for sustaining us here on KLCS PBS.

I'm David Nazar.

Well, it's official.

The state of California is in another extreme drought emergency.

So what's new?

Unfortunately, the official declaration has many scientists and water experts greatly concerned about what they say is the rapid deterioration of California's water supply.

To save water, there are things like conservation, water replenishment, water recycling, water recapture and desalination.

That's the process of turning ocean water into drinking water.

And we've talked about many of these options here on this broadcast.

Well, there is still another option as conscientious California water citizens and various organizations try to find a solution to California's water woes amidst this drought.

And you're about to meet some of those individuals and organizations who believe they have a solution to help you save water and money.

And that is where we begin our broadcast with the most unique program kno The U.S. Green Building Council Los Angeles, in collaboration with several other agencies, has helped create the brand new California native plant landscape curriculum, also known as native plant landscapers.

USGBC L.A. is a nonprofit organization that for years has been finding ways for Southern California to be more sustainable in developing a green building plan for the Southland.

And in part, that involves a green building Council working with the public, other nonprofits, real estate developers, architects and educators.

The goal is to have residential apartments, multifamily homes, office buildings, schools, even museums and sports fields be as environmentally friendly as possible.

The Native Plant landscaping program is a series of educational classes, teaching gardeners and landscapers how to manage all different kinds of drought tolerant plants and California native plants in conjunction with their eco friendly gardens.

This certificate program has been developed with some of the leading experts in the field throughout the state of California and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is helping fund this training.

Ben Stapleton is the executive director of USGBC, L.A..

The California Native Plant Landscaping Certification is really meant to help those that are contractors.

Small landscaping companies and others understand how to use native plants in our urban environment.

The benefits of native plants, how to market the sorts of services around really maintaining and planting native plants.

So we're really using this program as a way to educate and really lift up our gardening community so that they better understand how to use natives and our environment here in California.

Ben explains The native plant landscaper program helps with all sorts of sustainability concerns, everything from creating green jobs and workforce development to helping save the environment while saving water and money.

And he says all this begins with education.

I think with so many of our companies and organizations here, folks are very quick to hire, you know, Chief Sustainability officer or they'll have a plan to commit to net zero by such and such year.

But we don't spend the time to really educate those that are doing the work on a day to day basis.

You know, really part of the inspiration for us to work on a program like this was from our Green Janitors program, which works with the custodial and janitorial staff and domains to really empower them with the awareness around the work that they do and how they're the ones really decide if it building sustainable or not.

It's really a lot of the same theory around those that are doing gardening work or landscaping work.

How do we empower them to understand that context around the work they do and sustainability?

Native plants have so many benefits for our communities here.

You know, these plants really provide the basis for a lot of our biodiversity in the region.

You know, our insects here locally depend on these native plants.

Our birds depend on those insects.

And he just goes so on and so forth.

And, you know, if native plants are done correctly, they can save so much water, reduce the amount of pesticide use onsite.

You know, that reduced pesticide use not only makes the people who maybe live or occupy those buildings healthier, but also people who are doing that gardening work.

And there's just so many benefits that are recurring.

Everything's intersectional.

And so it's important that we really look at not just when we're looking at a building, what's happening inside that building, but what's happening with everything that's touching that building that's really part of the building as well.

When we look at green buildings, especially right now and we look at health, you know, so many of us are so much more aware of our own personal health and the spaces we occupy post post-pandemic.

You know, it's so important to have landscaping that you can interact with that green space that you can engage with on a regular basis that you get outdoors and experience.

Those things have profound health benefits.

Teresa mackey agrees.

Teresa lives in Tujunga, California, an L.A. City neighborhood within the Verdugo Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains.

This area is notorious for its arid region and wildfire risk, which is getting worse each year due to the drought.

Teresa says that the hunger landscape out here is part of the reason she decided to use a native plant landscaping plan for her garden.

I went and hired a landscaper that had native garden or native plant experience because that's I wanted somebody who knew my particular terrain and knew more about the weather conditions that could be up here.

So, you know, it wasn't just something that was pretty was going to be sustainable with Thrive through all the different seasons here.

So that's why I went to a landscaper.

Teresa says in addition to the durability of the native plants and their water conservation, especially during challenging weather conditions, the plants add an emotional sanctuary of sorts for her.

So you have to take a moment to watch the bees and the butterflies and the birds and stuff, so it adds peace.

I think, you know, you can come out here after a stressful day and it's very peaceful.

It's also very green, very lush.

So it's also adds beauty to your your soul, but also clean air.

It also helps clean our air as we, you know, migrate through climate change.

You have all this green space and also helps reduce some of the temperature because it adds it helps buffer.

So there's a lot of different reasons why, you know, a garden like this would add value to your home.

And now, Teresa, could you give us the grand tour?

So the native plants that I have here, my backyard is the white sage, which has these beautiful white blooms come spring summer.

Also, white sage is what they use for smudge sticks.

So if you're into smudging or if your friends are into smudging, you can dry it up and you know, or you can sell your your smudge sticks.

We have the hot lips here.

We have the Cleveland sage here, which has these beautiful purple flowers.

In the back corner is a sister plant called the Winifred Sage, which has purply flowers.

The tall, tall things Right here is the deer grass.

It makes a wonderful backdrop if you're going to do a native plant flower arrangement so you can come out here and pluck different flowers.

This is my coffee berry which birds love and bees love.

You can also grind these up and roast them.

I understand it makes a bitter coffee, if you're so inclined.

In the summertime.

What blooms here in my garden is the buckwheat.

The.

This is the pink buckwheat.

I think there's a couple of different versions of buckwheat.

This is the pink one.

It has fuchsia color flowers to it, and then it kind of fades out to this light pink.

It also makes for a very wonderful flower arrangement.

The grass is a cream ax.

It's low maintenance.

This grass only gets cut like two or three times a year.

It's on a drip system.

And here we have the apricot Mallow, which has these beautiful, beautiful, beautiful kind of apricot flowers that blooms in the spring and here in the summer.

And along the back wall here, these are the Carolina cherries.

These have these berries that birds absolutely love.

Over the past decade, the Theodore Payne Foundation has been developing the curriculum for students to take part in the native plant landscaping program.

The foundation has been collaborating with USGBC, L.A., L.A., DWP and the California Native Plant Society to help launch this innovative plan with the goal of having a more sustainable Southern California through plants.

The Theodore Payne Foundation is a SoCal nonprofit that helps educate the public about all the various types of California native plant landscapes with the help of their own nonprofit nursery.

Brenda Kyle is the community engagement coordinator with Theodore Payne.

Brenda helps lead environmental programs all over the L.A. area, and she helps recruit students for the Native Plant landscaping program.

My role with the program is to provide support and give all program participants the resources they need, not just to complete the program, but to use everything to build their business.

Being in the nursery business, one of the questions we always got was, Do you know someone who can help maintain my garden, not just do installs, but do the maintenance?

So that we saw a need and partnering with L.A. DWP, California Native Plant Society, United States Green Building Council, all eight of it was a natural fit.

Everybody has a different level of expertise that they brought in to the program.

Brenda says possibly see the native plant landscaping program could evolve into a prototype for all of Los Angeles, California and even other parts of the U.S.

Given the fact that native plants use about 75% less water than non-native plants.

That's a massive cost savings for the nation.

This program is going to help Angelenos build sustainable, esthetically pleasing gardens as an alternative to lawns.

As more municipalities start offering rebates to one alternative, there's going to be a need for landscapers, landscape architects and even the young little business model to be more knowledgeable on how to care for native plants.

L.A. will serve as a model to the rest of Southern California on how to use water for sustaining wildlife and nice gardens.

And to the rest of the country, especially the Western states, as we go through our cycles of drought and fire and rain and mudslides and everything else.

Whatever the condition, there is a plant specifically suited for for that and the educational factor alone would help everyone, not just Angelinos.

Brenda explains that people from all backgrounds and all walks of life are now taking part in a new program which is taught in English and Spanish.

Students include everyone from architects, landscapers and designers to city representatives and even reps from theme parks and certainly individual gardeners and owners of mom and pop landscaping shops from all over Southern California all participating.

When you're planning a garden, a lot of people look at it as, you know, this garden, it's here to serve me.

The way that we structured this program, it's holistic.

It's this is the garden, this is the savings to you, and this is what you're also doing for the environment and to sustain wildlife.

And then this is how the wildlife is also helping you.

So it comes full circle.

California native plants are already adapted to our very specific climate.

They're used to our cycles of rain, of drought, of fire.

It's it's built into their DNA.

So putting something that geographically would have been there any way it makes sense during fire season at homes that are in the urban wild interface, a well-maintained, well-planned garden can theoretically save your seed structures.

Joseline Oseguera Molina and Antonio Rodriguez took part of the Native Plant landscaping program and they are now officially native plant landscapers having graduated from the classes.

Joseline and Antonio have a gardening and landscaping business.

For two years I have been working with my husband in landscaping and gardening here in Los Angeles, California.

And this is what I do.

Before that, I didn't know anything about plants.

I'm so in love with nature.

We want to increase our knowledge to give our clients better options, to have a beautiful garden with spending less money.

Yeah.

And also definitely one of the main reasons why we decide to stay the course was we don't want to get a dog in a traditional landscaping and gardening.

You know, the world is changing every single day, so when we must have shade with it.

And also, yeah, we need to expand our knowledge and offer to find something different, new and ecologically.

Joseline explains what she and the other students have been learning from the program.

The first thing they are going to learn is to wholesaling, to fly the native plants here of California.

And that is really interesting because this is they have more than 200 species of native plants.

So that's really good for them.

And also they are going to learn about simple things like how to do a soil test.

Also, they can learn about.

The farming of water and power.

Irrigate program.

As Joseline and Antonio also explained, the program taught them how to identify native and California friendly plants.

They learned about things like irrigation scheduling and water delivery, as well as best practices to care for the native plants and how different soils affect landscape management.

And they studied all about weed and pest management in native landscapes.

You could say they are now experts in native gardens and possibly the best part about these native plants.

They named less water.

They need less care, so you save your time and at the end of the day you save your money.

Saving water and saving money.

Now there's a novel concept.

And joining me now to discuss this issue further is Clarke Stevens.

Clarke is an architect and the executive officer of the Resource Conservation District of the Santa monica Mountains.

Also joining me is Danielle Kilian with Form L.A. Landscaping.

Thank you both so much for being here.

Thank you for having us, David.

Thank you, David.

Before I get all my questions, I want to find out about you, both of you.

CLARKE So before we begin the discussion, talk about your organization, the resource Conservation District of the San Monica Mountains.

I just mentioned that Danielle, we'll hear from you about form L.A.

I'm trying to realize how all this relates to what our discussion is going to be about some of your background.

Go ahead.

Well, it's in the name.

We help landowners and land managers, people who are residents of the mountains, including people who don't own land, actually, to be better stewards of the resources that they have in a completely voluntary way.

We're not a regulatory agency.

We're an advisory group, and we do a lot of research on some of the things like what we're going to talk about today.

Danielle, tell me about former LA.

Army Lay Landscaping believes that we can sustain growth throughout Los Angeles and really save the city as well as the world, how we plant our landscapes.

Thank you both.

All right.

Now, let's broaden out the discussion.

We began the program with my native plant landscaping feel report.

Let's talk about something really plaguing all of California and so many parts of the Western U.S. these days.

You know, what I'm talking about is the massive wildfires.

They're horrific.

How can we reduce some of California's wildfire risk in relation to what we're talking about here?

Clark, let's begin with you.

Great.

Well, we talk about defensible space, but the first elephant element of defensible space is the home.

If your home doesn't burn, we don't have a problem with wildfires by definition.

So home hardening.

We always begin with the building itself.

And there are some things you can do to greatly increase your resistance to ignition and wildfire as a result.

And what are some of those things?

CLARK Well, for example, most most ignitions in wildfire years and most losses come from not from flame contact, but from embers penetrating the structure or igniting against the base of it, where like a campfire you have a little bit of kindling, which gets something a little heavier and something heavier.

And before you know, your home is is up in flames.

Events, gutter screens are two areas of vulnerability that can be easily and inexpensively adjusted.

And if embers do not penetrate your home, the chances are good that you'll survive that wildfire front passage, which is preceded and followed by an ember storm.

And Clark with relation to wildfires.

I have reported on so many wildfire stories over the years The scientists, the even the firefighters, they always start using the language wildfires in the urban landscape or wildfire resilience or the wildland.

What exactly do these terms mean?

Obviously, if you're on the four or five freeway and you see the Getty Museum, you get where the hills and the concrete connect.

But how do you describe it?

Wildfire resilience in the wildland area is is the approach that allows us to be in balance and to adapt to the conditions of our place.

Those conditions are in many of the places.

Our entire district is subject to wildfire risk at any time, but particularly in the fall with wind driven fire.

And so to be resilient is to be adapted to your place so that you live in a good relationship with it.

Daniel Talking about the place we live.

What are the greatest risks on our properties?

And in other words, where and how should we begin to try and mitigate all this?

Speaking of obviously, fire risk.

Clark hit the nail on the head.

Our homes are the most flammable objects on our property.

They are the driest fuel.

They're the most combustible fuel.

And they create the greatest ember casts.

So they will actually and they'll actually intensify the heat of the fire, too.

So I just want to duplicate what he was saying that we really need to focus on our homes first.

And from there we can start looking out into the landscape first to those dry fuels again.

And I know people think us plants when we say that, but we're really talking about sensors, about decking, about things that are not living, not hydrated because those things will burn first.

Daniel Also speaking of the plants, are there native plants that are more defensive, in other words, more fire resistant than others from what you folks have studied over at form?

LA Well, no plant is fireproof.

There are some that are fire resistant.

We think of our native plants as particularly fire resistant, even fire defensive because they're able to hold their hydration longer.

They know our soils, they know our air, they know our climate cycles.

So they have that advantage.

Also, it's just a great shorthand for not ending up with a dangerous plant in your yard.

So if you're looking for some of the most defensive choices, our coast live Oaks are an amazing ember catchers.

If you have slopes, dwarf coyote bush and you can whip our deep rooting.

So not only will they resist fire, they'll protect the slides and the mudslides that can come after fire as well.

Clark, how does a program like Native plant landscapers help get us to this place of fire reduction?

Danielle talked about it.

What's your take?

Well, where we work is the wildland urban interface.

And by definition, all of the time that it's not on fire, which for any given place we have to remember is most of the time.

So it's about living a good life, inappropriate relationship with your place, understanding that the condition of your landscape as you proceed from the home out reduces.

So in those first zones, it's about hydration.

In fact, the first five feet, it's really about avoiding anything less stable, including your lawn furniture, because you just don't want anything helping to set your home on fire as you move out.

Hydration.

And and it's remember, it's not just about the plant itself.

It's the form and relationship and maintenance and health of the plant has a lot to do with it.

So that as you move towards the 100 foot statistical limit of where it really matters based on studies of wildfire results, within that first 100 feet, you can move towards from from a domestic condition, your home towards a functional ecosystem.

And the rest of the time that the landscape is not on fire, you have all the benefits of that native landscape and it's the reason most people choose to live at that edge anyway and take the risk associated with wildfire.

And to your point was this native plant landscaping program launched Now certainly the obvious.

I mean, you save money, you save water, there's water conservation.

Certainly being environmentally friendly, however, was climate change and the risk of these wildfires we're talking about taking into account Clark.

Well, I can't speak for that program itself, but the emphasis on native plants in the in the domestic zone goes back to wanting to maintain the function, the ecological function of places in the face of of change, not just of the climate, but as places develop right as as we live in these places and in some cases, although in our region this is pretty much stopped, new residents come into play.

So when you move into a place you can interact with that natural landscape in a in a positive way and and be mindful of wildfire and resilient to it by working with the native landscape as opposed to against it.

In fact, I'll just mention in one condition, you'll hear people talking about, well, if we could just move the fuel out 100 to 300 feet away, we won't we won't be at risk anymore.

Amber cast, Amber flow and the average dangerous wildfire that we get out here.

Those embers are coming from a half mile away.

They don't care that the first hundred, 300 feet is is free of anything they can burn.

And by the way, it always has something in burns just fine fuels that light instantly.

However, if you have a smooth landscape, there are studies underway now and we're beginning to see that you can actually make a worse condition relative to your home, because what happens is all those embers over a smooth ground laminate, the first thing they hit is your home and they dump right there.

So you're actually inviting a vertical flame storm onto your home in the form of millions of little burning objects.

So it's not only a good for your soul to live in, in balance with these things, but practically speaking, even if you chose to move up there and get rid of it all, it's not going to help you.

And by the way, most people don't want 300 feet to clear.

Anyway.

In our remaining minute here for this interview, I want to get both of your take.

So 30 seconds for each of you.

Are you shocked at the duration of these wildfires?

I mean, I remember 30, 40 years ago, even as a kid, the duration of these fires weren't constant.

Now, it seems every week there's a wildfire, particularly here in southern California.

Now, all the way through our southern California and northern California.

This is crazy.

Danielle, to you and then Clark, take it from there.

It is heartbreaking but not shocking.

And we are going to have wildfires.

They don't need to take our lives and our property and we are all responsible for for where we are, not just the people who are living in the wildland urban interface.

Why don't we plant in the inner city in our suburban areas?

Also makes its way up into the mountains quite easily.

So embers and seeds travel the same way we've all got to pull together.

Clark Yeah, it's definitely disconcerting, even for those of us who are working with fire ecologists who understand that the conditions are unprecedented.

And so therefore, on the one hand you would expect unprecedented wildfire.

You know, I asked our senior conservation biologist, I said, is this really a new normal?

How can it be possible for the last couple of years to be continued into the future?

There will be nothing left to burn, right.

And it's it's a current normal in that we had a lot of die off in the Sierra, right.

A lot of beetle kill.

And I said, well, what about Napa?

And Sonoma?

Why are they getting them so much sleep while there is the tan out there and some problems there and the sudden oak death?

So we do have some environmental conditions again having to do with climate that are moments in time that are making it particularly bad now.

So but you know, you want to prepare, but I'm hopeful that there will be some ebb to this sadness flow that's currently happening.

Thank you so much, Clark Stevens and Danielle Kilian for a great discussion.

I greatly appreciate you folks being here.

Thank you.

And now for more information about our program, just click on KLCS.org.

Then click Contact us to send us your questions, your comments or your story ideas so we can hear from you.

And Jeff.

We're going to get back with you and be sure to catch our program here on PBS or catch us on a PBS mobile app for All Things Sustainable.

Thank you so much for joining us for this edition of Sustaining US here on KLCS PBS.

I'm David Nazar.