While April 22 is just around the corner and Earth Day is a wonderful time to reflect and celebrate this incredible planet, this month there are two other days that highlight hugely important environmental issues. March 21 is International Day of Forests and March 22 is World Water Day. How to celebrate? After all, these days…
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Human Help Needed to Restore Nature to the Angeles Forest
March 20, 2013The devastating Station Fire of 2009 destroyed 160,000 acres of wilderness in the Angeles National Forest in the mountains surrounding Los Angeles—and fully 11,000 of those acres burned too deep in the soil for natural seed regeneration. So every season TreePeople and the U.S. Forest Service need lots of extra hands to help plant trees…
How TreePeople Catches Every Drop
March 13, 2013Is Los Angeles a desert? Our city gets about 15 inches of rainfall annually, slightly more precipitation than, say, Missoula, Montana (though we have fewer days per year that are considered “wet”). Did you know this is enough to serve a fairly large population and irrigate its urban greenery? But every time it rains an…
Grow a Fruit Salad on a Single Tree
March 6, 2013Want to grow a fruit tree, but can’t decide which one? Wouldn’t it be great to have more than one type of fruit on a single tree? It’s possible to have this “fruit salad” effect in your backyard with the amazing technique of grafting. Grafting is the process of splicing a branch or bud from…
What Kind of Tree Is That?
March 1, 2013Ever notice the trees in your neighborhood? Maybe they are spectacular specimens with giant canopies that shade the streets and make you want to be a kid again and climb to the top. Or maybe they are small, under-cared for, half-dying trees, and it’s not even clear what kind they are. More than likely, it…
Western Redbud: “A tree with year-round interest!”
February 27, 2013Why is the Western redbud (Cercis occidentalis) the best tree ever? Maybe it’s because at this time of year, redbuds are the focal point of any garden lucky enough to have them. This native Californian is a small tree (15–20’ x 15–20’) and does well in most any kind of soil, as long as it is…
Not your typical field trip: 500 students win a chance to replant the Angeles National Forest
February 15, 2013Students from 10 Los Angeles area middle and high schools learned this week that they were winners of sponsored field trips to the Angeles National Forest to help restore fire-damaged areas of one of Los Angeles County’s largest preserved open space. The Facebook-based contest TreeByTree was a collaboration between TreePeople and Edison International. On a…
A Valentines Day tour of your local sewage treatment plant?
February 14, 2013Seeking inspiration on how to spend Valentine’s Day? Check out this idea: Brooklyn Sewage Treatment Plant to Hold Valentines Day Tours Again. What makes this such a sell-out event on the other coast? NPR reported that perhaps it is the pheromones that makes this unusual tour part of the hipsters’ bucket list, but maybe it’s…
When Trees Thrive, People Thrive
February 9, 2013We at TreePeople certainly believe that what we are doing is a matter of life and death. But sometimes we’re confronted with more sobering proof than we expected. That’s what happened when I read this article by Lindsay Abrams that recently appeared in The Atlantic, “When Trees Die, People Die.” I expected that this article…
Learn How to Get Your Landscape Really Green
February 7, 2013You may have noticed that some years in Los Angeles County are wetter—or drier—than others. And in wet years you may also have noticed a lot of unfiltered water rushing off paved surfaces, into storm drains, and out to sea carrying whatever pollutants it washes over. So, not only are we losing water that could…
Like it or not, you DO make a difference
February 6, 2013“You are never in neutral,” TreePeople founder Andy Lipkis tells environmental leader Huey Johnson, in an interview about how we all affect the environment. “People say [to me], ‘I love what you do because you show that people can make a difference.’” The truth is, people do make a difference, Andy says. And it comes…
Check Off Your Unbucket List
January 30, 2013Just when you thought you didn’t need another to-do list in your life, Unbucket launches to encourage your list to grow. With Unbucket, you can to expand your to-do list in the direction of the things—outdoor activities, charitable causes, learning opportunities, intellectual pursuits—you’re most passionate about. Unbucket is an app for sharing lists of things…