Last week, I told the story of my journey from third grade TreeKid to TreePeople storytelling intern. This week, we’re going back to Yurt Village to hear the story of two more seasoned TreeLadies. Meet Jessica Haren and Stephanie Nelson—summer Landscape Design and Development interns, respectively. Jessica, a Landscape Architecture student at UCLA Extension, works with TreePeople’s…
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Abuzz About the Power of Parkways!
August 20, 2013Up until recently, many Angelinos didn’t even know what a parkway was. Often called a planting strip, median, nature space or tree lawn—people were confused about what to call it, much less what to do with this section of our cityscape. Now all that’s changed. One little LA Times column by Steve Lopez, lots of…
“I don’t get anything out of it except saving the world,” Mary Miasnik, TreePeople Volunteer
July 9, 2013As a lifelong Angeleno, Mary remembers a time when she could ride her bike anywhere she wanted and nobody had to worry about where their children were. A time when nothing interesting happened except for an earthquake in 1933. “It was very peaceful, very ordinary,” she recalls of her upbringing. Then, in the late 70s,…
TreePeople’s Ecological Restoration Team to the Rescue
June 7, 2013Forty-five-acre Coldwater Canyon Park is home to TreePeople’s hilltop headquarters and the state-of-the-art Center for Community Forestry. Known to locals as a great hiking and dog-walking area, it’s one of the city’s valuable open spaces, and therefore home also to a myriad species of native plants and animals. As in other urban parks, though, its…
Greening Asphalt-Covered Schools: It Never Gets Old
May 23, 2013When I walked into the school office, armed with my spray paint and tape measure, I was greeted by Jorge Alvarez, one of the Victoria Avenue Elementary School Green Team members. “Are we marking the asphalt today?” You would’ve thought it was Christmas, the way his face lit up when I said yes. “Let me…
Election Day: A Watershed Moment?
May 21, 2013On this day when the people of Los Angeles will choose the next mayor, a leader who will be called on to prepare our city for the severe weather that is forecast for our future, including droughts and floods, it is heartening for me to reflect on what we learned from our Dutch colleagues during…
Fruit Trees Go Public
May 16, 2013You’ll have read about and possibly visited the public park orchard planted at Del Aire Park that opened last fall. It’s a Los Angeles County Arts Commission-sponsored project of the artist group Fallen Fruit, famous locally for their neighborhood maps of fruit-bearing trees accessible in public rights of way and the “fruit jams” they hold in…
Parking Lot Cool
May 14, 2013In these recent unseasonably hot days, have you noticed the heat radiating off blacktop? Black asphalt traps heat and releases it back into our cities. “But who said streets had to be black?” asked Ben Schiller, staff writer at Co.Exist. They pointed to Lawrence Berkeley Lab’s showcase of alternative paving surfaces to demonstrate how a…
It’s Raining! It’s Pouring!
May 9, 2013On average, Los Angeles gets only a quarter of an inch of rainfall in May. And yet… This year—a very dry one at that—we got a full inch of rain with the last storm. That bit of rainfall not only helped squelch the wildfires (which had an earlier than usual start this year), but it…
Downtown L.A. Goes from Gray to Green
May 3, 2013What’s better than a tree planting to beautify downtown L.A.? Many tree plantings to beautify downtown L.A.! TreePeople Citizen Forester Gabrielle Newmark rallied her downtown Los Angeles Arts District community to plant 27 trees—including well-adapted Australian willows and pink trumpet trees—on April 27. Enthusiastic volunteers named each tree so that now Hector, Blossom, Roscoe, Ilean,…
Free Workshops on Landscape Transformation, this Saturday, May 4
May 1, 2013Got plans for Saturday morning? If not, then come up to TreePeople and attend one of our free quarterly workshops on how to transform your home and neighborhood landscapes. You’ll learn everything you ever wanted to know about rain water harvesting, replacing a lawn with native plants, or planting trees—but were afraid to ask. Learn…
Celebrate Urban Trees as Superheroes on National Arbor Day, April 26
April 26, 2013U.S. Forest Service researchers have published compelling evidence* of urban trees’ immense carbon storage capacity. Along with the other many things they do to improve the environment, trees absorb carbon dioxide emissions from a multitude of pollution sources in our cities. “Thus,” the researchers conclude, “urban trees influence local climate, carbon cycles, energy use, and climate change.”…