Weed warriors vs. the plant invaders

Stewards of the environment have battled invasive species for years, and they’ve made a lot of progress. But there’s still plenty to do, and they’re inviting you to help them keep up the good work in some of the most scenic places in Los Angeles County.

Non-native plants have threatened California’s ecosystems ever since they hitched a ride with early settlers, opportunistically taking over places disturbed by human activity or fire.

Local restoration efforts picked up speed in 1986 after Point Mugu State Park burned and eight-foot high milk thistles invaded.  Environmentalists were crestfallen. So Jo Kitz, a California Native Plants Society member, started a “weed war.”

Focusing first on “woody” species like the milk thistle, eucalyptus tree and castor bean, Kitz and her fellow activists set to work using volunteers. They kept the effort up over the years, and as a result, many areas have been successfully replanted, including large areas of Malibu Creek State Park.

Today, Kitz is co-executive director of the Mountains Restoration Trust, which organizes five restoration outings per month with help from another nonprofit group, the Tree People. Volunteers remove the invasive species, roots and all. In their place, they install natives like oak trees, California wild roses and penstemons. Chicken wire is arranged to keep deer and other animals from consuming the plants before they mature. (“The deer just don’t understand delayed satisfaction,” Kitz joked.)

Many volunteers are students, who use the work to fulfill community service requirements. Organizers hope it gives them more than that.

“One of the reasons we decided to go the volunteer route is that we thought it would get kids off the asphalt and into open areas,” said Kitz. “Some of these kids have never had a shovel in their hand.  By about 11 o’clock they are all laughing and working.”

Volunteers get started at 8:45 a.m. and finish by midday. This Saturday, February 4, they head to Cold Creek Preserve. The following Sunday, February 12, “Weed Wars” goes to a location to be determined in the Santa Monica Mountains, followed by Topanga State Park on February 19 and Rancho Sierra Vista on February 26. You can reserve a spot by calling (818) 591-1701, extension 203, or by emailing volunteer@treepeople.org. If you go, bring water and sturdy shoes. Gloves and tools are provided.

Volunteer “weed warriors” stop non-native species from spreading and give nature a chance to handle the rest.

“We’re winning,” said Kitz. “Once these native plants take hold, they are fine on their own. They just need our help to get started.”

For more on invasive species and what to do about them, visit the Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner/Weights & Measures website.

Posted 1/30/12

New library tells Topanga’s story, too

It may not be easy to tell a book by its cover, but when the county’s newest library opens this weekend, visitors will have no trouble knowing which community’s stories are surrounding them.   

From the design to the public artwork, the long-awaited Topanga Public Library, which will be dedicated on Saturday, is an organic outgrowth of the community it will soon serve. 

“They tried to make it as homegrown as possible,” says Topanga artist Matt Doolin, who, with his brother Paul and his mother Leslie, created a circular tile mural of an idyllic Topanga landscape that will anchor the library’s main room.

The 11,293-square-foot, silver LEED-certified building broke ground in 2008 and has been in the works for more than a decade; for generations, residents of the mountain community had made do with other towns’ libraries and a visiting bookmobile. (Click here for a gallery of early construction work.)

Although Los Angeles County funded the $19.6 million project, it was clear from the start that the iconoclastic community, filled with environmentalists and artists, would insist on weighing in on the building’s aesthetic and carbon footprint.

“There are a lot of stakeholders in Topanga,” laughs Rebecca Catterall, former president of the Topanga Canyon Gallery and a 30-year-resident of the rustic enclave.

“There’s a sense of a spiritual connection there that’s not like any other place, and I think it’s important to the people,” agrees Norman Grochowski, who spent most of his career in Topanga and whose massive-yet-whimsical steel-and-ceramic book flowers bedeck the library’s entry.

“Topanga is a land within a land, a place far away.”

So a local design advisory committee was convened to determine the rustic “lodge” look of the North Topanga Boulevard building, and the library was built to the latest green construction standards.

Meanwhile, in accordance with county policy, one percent of the cost of construction was allocated for the incorporation of civic art into the project. A second local committee, this one pulled from the local art scene by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, commissioned pieces by four local artists. (Click here for an extensive photo gallery of the of the library’s artwork on Green Public Art’s Flickr page.)

Catterall, who sat on the arts committee, says the group methodically culled 29 entries in search of artists who were both representative of the community and who worked on an architectural scale. Patricia Correia, a Topanga-based art dealer and former gallery owner who served with Catterall, says the artists were chosen first and then asked to make pieces for specific areas of the building.

“A lot of times in public art, people pick a beautiful sculpture and then find out it’s too small or too big.”

Some aspects of the new library ended up being literally rooted in Topanga: A podium, two Adirondackchairs, two rocking chairs and a picnic table were made from trees that had had to be removed during construction. That work, set in motion by Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s office, was done by Don Seawater, whose California-based Pacific Coast Lumber Co. is a leader in the use of reclaimed wood and urban forestry.

Artist and art teacher Megan Rice, who did two papier mache sculptures for the library’s children’s section, also honored the fallen trees—two oaks and two pines—by using one of the stumps as the base for “A Great Tale,” which depicts a little boy reading to his faithful dog.

“I’ve lived in Topanga since 1956, and when I heard they were looking for artists with a vested interest in Topanga, I felt, ‘That’s me’,” says Rice, who was 5 when her parents moved to the community.

“My mother was the children’s librarian at Topanga Elementary School for eight or ten years, and I grew up with the bookmobile—in fact, in my early childhood, it was a very big part of my life because we had few neighbors, and for a long time my mother didn’t have a car, so getting a big stack of books there was a source of great excitement for me.”

Local potter Jim Sullivan, a resident since the early 1960s, remembered the Topanga childhood of his now-grown daughter when he designed the ceramic tile “rug” just inside the front entrance. “When she was in fourth grade, she went to the Adamson House inMalibu, and the docent stopped them at the front door and pointed to the threshold,” says Sullivan. “She said, ‘Does anybody know what that is?’”

Only Sullivan’s daughter, the child of a ceramist, knew that the design on the floor was a broken tile mosaic. When the guide explained that broken tile was often used in doorways because of ancient lore that it kept out evil spirits, Sullivan says his daughter became so excited that she begged him relentlessly to install similar mosaics in their own house.

Since then, he says, he has done a number of such installations, and when he heard about the library commissions, he felt a piece of broken-tile floor art would be perfect for Topanga’s new landmark. His 8-foot-wide piece, made entirely by hand, he says, depicts a spark growing into a flame of intellect and community.

All the artists who contributed work are established and well known in Topanga. The Doolins have done murals at local landmarks ranging from Disneyland California Adventure to public pools in South Los Angeles. Grochowski, who now lives in Crescent City, Ca., but visits Topanga several times a year, has shown work at LACMA and the Laguna Art Museum.

Rice’s work has been exhibited throughout California, and Sullivan, whose ceramics are in a number of private collections, has done historic restoration work from Malibu to Pasadena; for many years he co-owned Malibu Ceramic Works, a Topanga tile company that replicated historic tiles.

Correia says the work by Sullivan and the Doolins echoes Topanga’s long history as a center for ceramic artwork and the sculptures by Rice and Grochowski brought variety.

“There aren’t a lot of libraries getting built anymore,” she notes. “It was exciting, and we wanted to bring a three-dimensionality to the space, take it beyond just a big painting or a big mural outside.”

The new library “is incredibly important,” adds Correia.

“We don’t really have an everyday kind of communal place that isn’t a commercial space,” she says. “This is going to bring the community together in a way that deals with knowledge and culture and imagination. I can’t wait.”

The library’s grand opening will take place Saturday, January 21, at 11 a.m. The address is 122 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd.

Posted 1/17/12

Santa Monica Mountains man on the move

Woody Smeck may speak softly, but he carries a big reputation.

With his wide-brimmed hat and low-key eloquence, Smeck has become the public face of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and in many ways its staunchest guardian.

As superintendent of the country’s largest urban national park for more than a decade, Smeck has presided over the recreation area as it added thousands of acres of new public open space. Working with partners from every level of government as well as those from community and non-profit groups, Smeck has helped shape everything from firefighting practices to educational outreach to preservation guidelines for sensitive wildlife habitats.

And he has been a tireless advocate for the 153,750-acre recreation area, appearing in this video and countless other forums to explain the complexity and importance of the vast natural preserve at the edge of the one of the world’s largest cities.

Now he’s getting ready to to make his mark on another national treasure. In April, he will become Yosemite National Park’s new deputy superintendent. And those who’ve walked the path with him here are already feeling the loss.

“I’m so sad,” said Kim Lamorie, president of the Las Virgenes Homeowners Federation, which honored Smeck with its “Citizen of the Year” award in May.

“There is only one Woody Smeck.”

In honoring Smeck, Lamorie credited his “quiet but persuasive ability to finesse funding” of new open space acquisitions. Future generations, she said, will “revel in the wonder of the wild and wonderful resources you have preserved.”

Geoffrey Given, who heads the advisory board for the Santa Monica Mountains campus of the educational program NatureBridge, said Smeck’s impending departure is “a huge loss for Santa Monica [but] a huge gain for Yosemite.”

“He has been an unbelievable advocate and supporter of what we do,” Given said. “At all of our fundraising events, he’d show up in uniform with his flat-brimmed hat on.” Smeck also put his money where his hat was, backing the organization’s educational outreach with funds from his own agency’s budget, Given said.

“I think he has made historic contributions to the National Recreation Area,” added Joe Edmiston, who as executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has worked closely with Smeck for years. “His shoes will be very difficult to fill.”

In announcing the appointment, Yosemite Superintendent Don Neubacher said Smeck “has the ideal background to helpYosemite achieve unequalled operational and innovative excellence.”

Smeck said Neubacher first reached out to him about joining the Yosemite team about 1½ years ago. With his youngest daughter still in high school, the timing wasn’t right initially. But now that she’s graduating at the end of this school year, Smeck decided to accept the offer.

He’ll head to Yosemite solo in early April and will live in park service housing until his wife, Karen, can join him, probably in July. They plan to buy a home in Mariposa.

The new position could put Smeck in line for greater executive responsibilities down the line—either at another national park or in Washington, D.C.

But he said he’ll miss his Santa Monica Mountains stomping grounds, where he got his professional start in 1991 as a young landscape architect with degrees from Cal Poly Pomona. Smeck reached the recreation area’s top job in 2001. He still marvels that he was able to get there without first transferring to other points around the National Parks system.

“People told me not to expect to stay [in one location] very long,” said Smeck, now 49.

But stay he did—long enough to rub shoulders with influential people ranging from TV documentarian Ken Burns to President George W. Bush.

Bush’s visit in 2003, he said, was a high point—a recognition of the power of collaborative work toward a common goal.

“It was a great opportunity to talk to him about how partnerships work, how cooperative management works, and he genuinely listened to what I had to say,” Smeck said, recalling a 45-minute hike into the Rancho Sierra Vista area of Point Mugu State Park with Bush and a small group that included Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. “To get a presidential visit…was very uplifting for everyone.”

He said he’s also proud of completing a general management plan that “provides a unifying framework for preservation and stewardship” of parklands going forward. That plan, created with various state partners and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, established a “cooperative vision” that has informed an array of other actions, including blueprints for fire management and land protection.

His career is a natural outgrowth of an outdoorsy childhood in California’s Central Valley. “I spent my summers hiking and camping in the Sierra Nevada Mountains—especially Sequoia National Park,” he said. “By the time I was 21, I had experienced most of the Sierra Nevada wilderness.”

His first day on the job in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area started inauspiciously when he got lost trying to find the Rancho Sierra Vista trailhead.

“Back then, you had to drive through residential areas and gravel roads to find the obscure parking lot,” he said. “One of my first assignments was to develop a new entry road and trailhead from Potrero Highway. Today, I’m happy to report that visitors have a very scenic entry drive and wonderful staging area with good signs, drinking water, and clean restrooms to start their park experience at Rancho Sierra Vista.”

As he prepares to venture north to the world-renowned glories of Yosemite’s Half Dome and Bridalveil Fall, he acknowledged that he’ll miss the lesser-known but equally beloved natural treasures he’ll be leaving behind in the Santa Monica Mountains.

“Oh wow, there are so many incredible places. If I had to pick one, the place that’s the closest manifestation of heaven for me is the Old Boney Trail in Point Mugu State Park,” he said. “It is just such a pristine, wild, raw, natural environment. It’s as if you’ve been transported into another world. It is spectacular.”

For Smeck’s photo of the Old Boney Trail and some of his other favorite sights in the Santa Monica Mountains, check out a gallery of his photos below.

 

Posted 12/14/2011

Arboretum torn from limb to limb

Call it triage—or maybe, more accurately, “tree-age.”

Clean up crews at the Los Angeles County Arboretum &  Botanic Garden are just beginning to get a full sense of the destruction wreaked by last week’s raging windstorm. Home to some 10,000 species of plants, the 127-acre public garden in Arcadia lost hundreds of specimens, including a huge Bluegum eucalyptus planted in the 1880s.

“This is going to take weeks to assess—we still can’t get into some areas because we haven’t cleared them,” said Superintendent Tim Phillips.  “We have a three-member curatorial team mapping the damage and they’ve been working until dark since Monday. And that’s just for the general overview.”

Philips said that although “entire collections have been severely damaged”—including the garden’s iconic Ear Pod trees—there also were some spirit-lifting surprises.

“We have a native population of Engelmann oaks, which are the most northerly stand inCalifornia. The winds came down right over them and they came out unscathed,” Philips said.

The once-perfectly manicured grounds, now coated with limbs, leaves and debris, remain closed to the public. Arboretum officials said it will take at least two weeks before a small section of the grounds can be reopened. They expect that the place won’t be restored entirely until next year. Progress updates will be posted on the arboretum’s website.

Arboretum officials are appealing for the public’s help in restoring the grounds through a fund-raising drive that represents “the single biggest tree planting campaign in the institution’s history.”

“The most important thing folks can do is to help us replant the Arboretum,” said Chief Executive Officer Richard Schulhof, who expects the initiative to run into the tens of thousands of dollars.

“Many of the trees we lost were planted 50 years ago at the time of our founding. Now we have to plant the next generation.”

Fortunately, he said, the storm arrived just as the Arboretum had completed a strategic plan to update and improve the gardens.  Prior to last week, he said, there wasn’t much room for new installations.

Now, Schulhof said, the staff can increase the gardens’ focus on water conservation and gardening within the Southern California climate and maybe create new spaces featuring drought-resistant plants or lawn alternatives.

“It’s heartbreaking, but it’s also a godsend,” said botanical information consultant Frank McDonough, who has been photographing and helping inventory the damage. “This will allow us to curate more items, and curate with a policy that reflects the needs of L.A.” (Click here to see a gallery of McDonough’s pictures.)

McDonough said the windstorm was a reminder “that you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.”

CEO Schulhof agreed

“There was a pink trumpet tree that was in just the most ideal location,” he recalled sadly. “It created a perfect vista in one part of the Arboretum. It was one of my favorites, and that tree got knocked down.

“But there are many wonderful specimens that survived. I’m looking at one now, a Philippine species of eucalyptus. It’s probably the greatest specimen of its kind in California, and here it is, still standing. Tall and beautiful.”

Posted 12/7/11

A whirlwind of trouble

For more than 75 years, majestic deodar cedars have lined Los Feliz Boulevard along Griffith Park. The imposing trees are an indelible part of the neighborhood’s character—and such a significant slice of the Los Angeles landscape that they’ve been granted cultural landmark status.

But no amount of civic protection could spare two of the beloved giants from the savage winds sweeping through the county this week. They were among hundreds of trees damaged or uprooted as gusts of wind approaching 100 miles an hour slammed Southern California, downing power lines and wreaking havoc including widespread outages, road closures and “wind days” in some local schools.

Much of the damage has been centered in San Gabriel Mountain foothill communities such as Pasadena, San Gabriel, Arcadia and Sierra Madre.

But the winds have left their mark on the Westside and the San Fernando Valley as well.

The toppled Los Feliz deodars, their massive roots completely unearthed, served as a powerful reminder of the winds’ damaging potential.

The trees, located in a stretch of some 200 deodars that together are classified as city Historical Cultural Landmark 67, were planted as part of a civic beautification movement in 1935.

The landmark designation means that they may not be pruned without official approval—but the winds did not play by the rules.

City Councilman Tom LaBonge, whose district is home to the trees, said the damage came as part of “the worst windstorm I have ever seen in the City of Los Angeles.”

“We don’t like to lose any of them,” said Donald Seligman, president of the Los Feliz Improvement Association, which maintains the trees. “They’re very unique for Los Angeles.”

With more high winds on the way, officials are urging extreme caution around power lines and trees. If you encounter a downed or dangling line, stay away from it and call 911 immediately. If you can, stay indoors, but don’t use the elevators, which could stall if there is a power outage.

To report damage to roads in unincorporated Los Angeles County, the number is 1-800-675-HELP (4357.)

More wind safety tips, from the Los Angeles City Fire Department, are here. And updated information on school closures, power outages and a recently-opened emergency shelter in Pasadena is here, along with a list of other helpful links.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, chair of the Board of Supervisors, declared a state of emergency in the county on Thursday afternoon, clearing the way for state and federal assistance. The cities of Pasadena, Sierra Madre and Monrovia also have declared local emergencies in the wake of the wind-borne devastation.

The urban forestry division of the city Department of Street Services was among the many agencies scrambling to stay on top of the damage Thursday morning.

“It’s pretty bad,” said chief forester George Gonzalez. “Calls are pouring in like crazy.”

Although the velocity is unusual, “wind events” typically happen three to five times a year in Los Angeles, Gonzalez said.

The ferocious Santa Ana winds are expected to continue today with gusts of up to 80 miles an hour in Southern California, the National Weather Service said. They’re part of a bigger storm that’s expected to affect the southwestern U.S. through at least Friday.

Posted 12/1/11