You 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…
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Sheet Mulching 101 (part 2 of 2)
January 24, 2013Want to see how an average home in Los Angeles can save almost 100,000 gallons of water per year? Here is TreePeople member and volunteer Valerie Fontaine, converting her yard to a sustainable site. With a simple DIY project, Valerie transformed her garden in a weekend. Following Part 1 of our tutorial, here are your…
Sheet Mulching 101 (part 1 of 2)
January 23, 2013What is sheet mulching? Just the quickest, easiest way to go from a thirsty, outdated green shag carpet of a landscape to a sustainable garden in about the time it takes to mow the lawn. Follow these easy steps and you can do what fabulous TreePeople member and volunteer Valerie Fontaine recently did at her…
Grow a Food Forest in a Food Desert
January 16, 2013The term “food desert” describes an urban community that lacks access to fresh, healthy food in local shops and grocery stores. These are regions in our city where, for various reasons, neighborhood retailers can’t or don’t stock produce and healthful alternatives to processed fast food. In Inglewood’s “100 Seeds of Change” initiative, residents have taken…
Building resilient communities one tree–and many neighbors–at a time
January 11, 2013Want to know how to survive the next natural disaster? Think community and good neighbors, not concrete barricades and security guards, as Eric Klinenberg recently recommended. Klinenberg says in an NPR interview, “In light of the risk we face with climate change, I sincerely hope that we invest in the social infrastructure. Because when a real disaster strikes,…
The Soil Solution
December 17, 2012Soil is as vital to environmental health as the plants that grow in it. If you watched the latest Ken Burns documentary, The Dust Bowl, or if your forebears settled in California because they had to flee the ruined soil of the Midwest, then you know what Burns means by “the worst man-made ecological disaster…
South L.A. Parents Learn to “Prune” Back Asphalt and Bring Nature to Urban School Yards
December 13, 2012On a typical hot, smoggy Los Angeles school day, hundreds of children at South L.A. schools no longer have to broil in unshaded asphalt-covered school yards. Through TreePeople’s School Greening Initiative, South L.A. parents are being trained and supported to transform their children’s campuses into shadier, leafier, cooler—even food-producing—places to learn and play. In early…
Visit L.A.’s first Tree Campus USA, December 16
December 6, 2012Did you know the male gingko tree sprouts smelly fruit? Learn all about it and much more on our next Branching Out Community Tree Walk, as we comb the grounds of Los Angeles Valley College—the first college or university in the Los Angeles area to be recognized by the Arbor Day Foundation as a Tree…
Vote for a documentary to make you fall in love with nature
November 30, 2012Our founder Andy Lipkis is an expert in the extraordinary film Love Thy Nature and we’d like you to join TreePeople in helping the Director Sylvie Rokab take it to completion. She launched a Kickstarter campaign (to raise finishing funds) where you’ll see a short video and info about the film. Watch trailer here Not…
Would you eat your landscape?
November 20, 2012As we near the Thanksgiving holidays, maybe you’re thinking about fall harvests. But if the land around your house is covered in lawn, consider this: traditional turf uses the same amount of water as vegetable gardens. If you’re going to grow something that uses that much water, maybe you should be able to recoup some…
PUT ON YOUR TREE VISION
November 14, 2012Could you tell a Leptospermum laevigatum from a Ficus macrophylla? One is familiarly known as a Moreton Bay fig. Still blanking? On Sunday, November 18, join TreePeople’s free Branching Out community tree walk in historic Palisades Park in Santa Monica to develop your “tree vision” and see your neighborhood’s urban forest through a whole new…