Fire Prevention Landscapes with Greg Rubin - Garden America Podcasts & Radio Show [1.25.25] - Garden America - Gardening Podcast & Talk Radio Show

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, I just got the go ahead sign from Tiger.
That means it is six minutes after the hour. We
are ready to go. A nice long warm up in
the studio before the actual broadcast. But welcome once again,
Happy weekend, Welcome to your weekend here Garden America. Brian Maine,
John Begnasco Tiger Pellafox a couple of nice comments before
the show, looking forward to spending part of their Saturday

(00:20):
morning with this. John.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, yeah, you know, does this show ever remind you
of an episode of twilight Zone?

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Oh? In many ways, because when you start the show
or start watching twilight Zone, you're never quite sure how
it's going to end up, and there's usually a lot
of twists and.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Turns, and that's sure where it's going.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Plot variations, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
I know.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Yeh time frame, it's inact.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Exactly, Yeah, especially if you're listening on the radio, because
we were here last week exactly exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah, So twilight Zone fans out there, we've been discussing
twilight Zone. Anyway, We're going to discuss gardening today, I think,
and we've got a guest and we're just ready to
go gardening.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Maybe some rain coming our way.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Gardening rain.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Do you remember the last team that rained?

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yeah, other than just nineteen six, nineteen ninety nine, was
it here John in San Diego?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
No, No, but it's almost a year, right.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
I was gonna say, I feel like it's been almost
a year, because you got to think we're in the
end of January, beginning of February.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Now nothing.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Last year we had a wet We had a wet year.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
I would the weeds everywhere, right.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Years last two years, right, so I would say it
rained all the way up into April, maybe in May
for us. Right. So now if you think about it
from that time, we're only three months away from that
from a year, and in the rain that we have
in the forecast isn't even really rain, you know, it's

(01:43):
like a possibility of rain.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Now John's a big advocate of the Pharma's Almanac, Haha.
What did they say about this season in heaven? Hoid?
But I mean what there's some like publications or news
or weather talking about what may happen. I don't remember
them saying it's going to be a drought. They said
it was a yeah, as opposed to l Nino, El Nino,

(02:08):
El Nino, thank.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
You, Yeah, And which means drying, means dry for us,
but it means this three.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Years in a row of rain for northern Califoria.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Correct, right, Yeah, they're and they're getting it. Yeah, like
they are getting it. We are not. So that's what
you do.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Good for you, hey, no, we we uh. It's always
good to get the rain. And that's what you know.
We're living here in this desert. This is a desert,
which is one big reason why the fires get out
of control so quickly. People forget that tree. How many
native trees do we really have here in California? Three
southern California, right, two or three? Everything else was brought

(02:44):
in here. This is an arid desert right to the water,
right to the ocean, arid.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
What about Tory pines?

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah, it's it is native. That's one of the one
of them three because we had.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Straight to the ocean though.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
But I mean for the most part, it's not a
forest or jungle. It's not like we we you know,
cut down trees.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
I have to agree with you there. It's neither a
forest nor a jungle.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
But yeah, I'm hoping we get some rain.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
That is one thing. Did I ever talk to you
about this? Phenomenon. So I was in Lake Lake, Michigan
in this past summer, and you know, people have these
beautiful lake houses right on the lake, Okay, and the
forest goes right to the lake. Yeahah, And people keep
the forest going right to the lake. They don't cut

(03:32):
the trees down. They don't. They don't make a clearing
or anything of that sort. They just leave the forest
straight to.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Lake unless that lot sells, because that's like front property.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
No, but that's what I'm saying, even when they have
went I went to a friend's house in the houses
up in the trees, and that's the way it is.
And that's normal. We're in California. Oh, if there's a
tree blocking your view of the water, you cut that down. Stay.
And I'm so amazing. I asked, I said, why don't
you clear out these trees? And he's like, why would
I like, because then you could see the lake. He's like,

(04:04):
I could see the lake. Fine, I don't need to
cut out down.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
All these trees have the shade.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
They would rather have the shade, they would rather be
in the trees. It's a it's a different mentality very much.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
So yeah, plus your I would say almost anywhere in Michigan.
At you're less than thirty minutes from a lake.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yeah, so I'm not at it's not a big deal.
And also it probably provides them some sense of protection
because if you're fully exposed to that lake during the winter,
that's probably not going either. That's you know, that wind
howling off of that frozen lake and right up to
your house. You probably want that barrier of shrubbery trees

(04:43):
to break up some of that too.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
A lot of our listeners are are online talking about
the the camellias that are beginning to bloom out. Oh yeah, yeah,
Carlo's sending a picture of her Nucio's pearl camellion that
we put in the news.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, that was nice.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
And this is this is just about the beginning of
camellia season, right, Tiger. Yeah, I mean, you know, the
sun camellia started late last fall, right, But now the
the camellia Japan bloom.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah. And you know, it's a funny thing when you
start to see them bloom. But it's also seventy seven
degrees outside in sunny, you know what I mean, Like
normally you're accustomed to being a little bit winter weather.
Some rain, some clouds.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Don't we have a whole week of cold weather.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
It says that relative relatively cold cold for us. So
I was out in Santee, which is East County, San Diego,
last night and I was freezing. I'll bet it was
forty six degrees outside and I was freezing.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
You know what, I'm surprised it. I would have thought that.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Was the wind blowing, though not really.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
I was just it was just I would thought it
would be colder forty six to me because I was
thirty seven yesterday morning when I drew you an appointment. Yes,
thirty seven.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
I think I told you guys last week the temperature was.
I'm licking at my phone and says the temperature is
forty eight and it puts feels like thirty nine because
the wind was blowing so hard.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
That's what it said. Yeah, how do you know what
everyone feels like?

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah, like thirty sun said, it feels to me like
it's thirty Okay.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
So you know you've talked about this before, John, about
plants get triggered by certain things. The chamella, the chamella's blossom.
Is it triggered by the cold or the daylight hours?

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Daylight.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
It's cold, so it doesn't matter how cold or hot
it is. It's the amount of sunlight that's pretty smart.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah, don't let the variations of temperature throw you off.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, but it's different, right, Some plants are different like this.
I'm a controlled by the colder heat. You know.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Well, dormancy is it's controlled by either one and the
same thing with blooming on some plants. Symbidiums is one.
That's why you can't grow symbidiums indoors, right, unless you've
got a cold porch or something. If they don't get
cool nighttime temperatures, they're not going to bloom.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
I have mine butted up right now, do you? Yep?
Can't wait? M Yeah, I love I love them.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
I like the.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
There's so many new hybrids and symbidiums, almost like with
failian Opsis circuits, but they're not as easy to find,
you know, because you need that cool temperature. You don't
see them in supermarkets as much as you usually do.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
I just like it because it's one of those ones
that you can put outside and just be very successful with. Yeah,
you can't.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
It's it's I think to put a failiing Opsis outside,
it's going to be.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Dead exactly exactly. But symbidium, you can put it outside
protected area. You're gonna be successful. You're gonna love it.
I had this one house that I used to go
to and they used to have these big, almost like
twenty four inch size plastic terra cotta pots, about twenty
of them, just filled with different symbidiums.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
Hmm.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
It was amazing when they were all in blue.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
We got a couple of minutes to the break. Two
things to attend to right now. First of all, we'll
tease our guest, but after John's quote of the week,
and we'll talk about who we're going to be talking
to this morning here in Garden in America. John, You're
ripe and ready to go, aren't you.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
I've got her right here.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Good for you.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
The quotes by by you're one of the people you
admire most. Brian Rachel Carson.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Rachel Carson, Yeah, call her Rach in the neighborhood. Hey,
how you doing, Rachel?

Speaker 2 (08:36):
And she said, those who contemplate the beauty of the
earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long
as life lasts.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
And where do where she got that quote from?

Speaker 2 (08:50):
She made it up Rightan.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
She good for her. All right, Tiger somebody we've had
on before. If you get the newsletter, by the way,
you know what we're going to be talking about. You
saw his picture, you saw John's articles, you saw other pictures.
You saw pictures that people sent us from what's growing
in their garden. You've got to get the newsletter. Go
to Gardenamerica dot com and sign up for the newsletter.
Lots of pictures, yeahs, images, yes, yes, images.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
But we're gonna be having Greg Rubin. Greg's going to
be doing as a wonderful native plant planting advocate here
in southern California's gonna help us maybe debunk some myths
in terms of fire protection, in terms of planting all that.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
It's gonna be a debunking show. I had to look
twice when I saw who was going to be on.
Uh his name again, Uh, Greg, Greg Rubin. I grew
up with a Gary Rubin. I went to high school,
elementary school, I think it was his dad, junior high school.
But I had to look twice at that name. I'm thinking,
what does Gary know about this kind of stuff? Anyway,

(09:51):
that's gonna be good. The show's gonna be debunking. We're
gonna we're gonna be debunkers today.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
What is Gary about?

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Hey?

Speaker 3 (09:56):
You know? Speaking of you again?

Speaker 1 (09:58):
About thirty seconds, John go ahall right.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
If you're out there doing Google searches, the first thing
that comes up now is AIM and I want to
warn our listeners that a lot of those things that
you see first that answer your questions are wrong.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
What's kind of like Wikipedia, right, Wikipedia, because anybody can
add to Wikipedia.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
So that AI is just gathering with what's out there,
and if the wrong information is out there, it sends
it to you.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
All right, we're going to take a break. We want
to welcome those listening tuned in on BIS Talk Radio.
Thank you Stephanie for keeping us on the You and
your team BIS Talk Radio Facebook Live. Brian Main, John
Bignscar Tiger Palafox. It is break time for BIS Talk
Radio Facebook Live. Back after these messages, we're going to
get a hold of our guests. Do stay with us.
We are back from the break. Thank you for tuning in.
Now those on BIS Talk Radio, welcome one and all

(10:46):
Facebook Live. It's the regular cast of characters, the A Team,
the Varsity Team tuned in today with that in mind,
Guard America continues, I'm going to toss to tiger and
let's let's welcome our guest. Tiger.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, our guest this morning is a longtime friend of
the show, Oh, Greg Rubin. He's joined us before, talking
about native plants, planting, design, care of native plants here
in southern California, but also you know, kind of natives
in general. The theme kind of goes with where you're living,
because it's all a matter of making making your landscape

(11:18):
fit with what you have, with the nature of wherever
you are, the watering, the cold, the sun, the soil,
all of that. Greg, good morning, thank you for joining us.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
Good morning Tiger.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
Hey, so Greg, refresh our listeners. A little bit about
your your history, your past, where your knowledge comes from.
You know, what is it that you you do today?

Speaker 4 (11:42):
So I am almost exclusively a California native plant landscaper.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
So I use.

Speaker 4 (11:51):
Plants are indigenous to California. And we've done about eight
hundred landscapes, give or take in southern Californa since about
nineteen ninety five. And certainly, you know, you have habitat,
you have drought tons, you have lower maintenance, you have beauty,
but also a special interest and a lot of experience

(12:14):
with fire in our California native landscapes and the fire
behavior and the fact that we haven't lost a home yet,
even though we've had a couple dozen homes go through
major fire events, you know, not wood, and so, you know.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
When it comes to native plants for southern California, a
lot of people instantly think like, oh man, these you know,
we have a lot of fires in our areas, So
why would you want to plant native because they seem
the ones that are the most prone to burning. You know,
what do you what do you answer to that? Greg?

Speaker 4 (12:48):
Well, it's interesting because you know, chaparral doesn't need to burn,
but it was. It is adapted to very infrequent fires
that would burn catastrophically all the way out to the ocean.
But since prior to human habitation, there were no ignition sources.

(13:09):
Prior to humans, I mean, there was lightning, all right,
but how often do you have lightning during a sant
Ana wind event? So it was a rare It was
a rare convergent of factors that would actually cause one
of these fires to happen. And so they've gotten this
reputation for being firebombs. You know, like you're going to
plant a native plant next to your house, it will

(13:30):
spontaneously burst into flames and burn down your house. Well, actually,
what we discovered is that if you give them very
light hydration on the level of the summer thunderstorm, maybe
three times a month during the warm weather, you know,
they can actually become quite fire resistant. Some of the
most fire resistant materials they might have are actually native

(13:52):
plants that have been hydrated. And it takes so little
water to actually hydrate a native plant.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
And so when you say, you know, hydrating a native plant,
you're just talking about, you know, the watering of them,
you know, whether it by hand or by irrigation. And
you know, as you mentioned, this isn't something that has
to happen three to four times a week in order
to get that level of hydration. This is something that
you know, you can do kind of infrequently, but you

(14:21):
just don't want it to turn into the dry brush
that a native plant would normally turn it into in
the summertime. Right.

Speaker 4 (14:27):
Yeah, with this light, you know, thunderstorm level watering, the
the hydration actually replaces a lot of the oils that
would sustain these plants in the absence of any supplement
earth water and so and they hold on to it
in the face of flames. So, like I said, we've

(14:49):
had about two dozen homes go through major fire events.
I mean we're talking cedar, which create you know Harris
and you know, not wood. We haven't lost a single
house yet. We have a pretty good idea what's going
on both mechanically and uh, you know, how the fire

(15:09):
reacts to when it hits this native vegetation. And it's
been very, very gratifying successful. And we actually tested in
a four year research project.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
For the US Navy and and so in some of
that research, did you guys look at specific plants or
just groups of plants? How did you guys evaluate that?

Speaker 4 (15:36):
So it's interesting, yes, I mean in the you know,
we targeted a few different species because we looked at
different scenarios, a lightly irrigated planted native landscape, thinned chaparral,
and then the um modified unmodified control. And what we

(16:01):
found was that the lightly irrigated landscapes consistently in many
different scenarios, the lightly irrigated native landscape actually had the
slowest rate of fire spread, and it was very significant
difference compared to the unmodified chaparral and also the thin

(16:24):
chaparral it was kind of just above the irrigated stuff.
It was nobody ever actually tested this until we did
this study, and it turns out you have existing chaparral
within it down to about fifty or sixty percent coverage,
there is a significant consequence for slowing down the fire.

(16:52):
And one of the things we learned is that you know,
when you have vegetation that is lightly higher graded now
it acts as ember catchers and ember coolers. And the
fact that we have some verticality here and there and
different surface treatments through different sized shrubs and groundcovers, that

(17:16):
actually helps break up the flow of embers that would
otherwise come straight in and hit your house. In fact,
we found that if you clear the bare ground, thinking
that you've removed all the fuel and you're going to
be safe, that's actually a pretty dangerous situation because there's
actually nothing to disturb the flow of embers except your house.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
Oh that's so true. So if you plant these shrubs
that you get a substantial size or whatever you're thinking,
know they're going to light up. No, if they're well
hydrated and good plants, they'll actually catch the embers before
they get to your home, before they get to your
roof or anything like that, and can possibly say the house. Now,
now with this the idea of hydration, the way I

(18:00):
kind of explain it to people, because you know what,
during Christmas, there's always the news article about the Christmas trees,
right Greg, about oh, you know this Christmas tree in
your house, It's it's a bomb. You know, you got
to watch out. It's gonna, you know, just light up
and your whole house is gonna come down with it.
And you know that is true to some extent when

(18:20):
it's January fifteenth and that Christmas tree has been in
your house for a month and it stopped absorbing water
and it's you know, you touch it and all the
needles fall off. But you know, December tenth, when you
put it in your home, if you take a lighter
to those needles, they don't instantly combust. It's it's well hydrated,

(18:40):
it's saturated. It's not going to just light up. So
it's all about that hydration level in the plants. Hey, Greg,
we're gonna have to take a break right now. When
we get back from the break, I want to go
back to this kind of like ember catching thing because
I really like how you've always advocated for how to
water native plants, and I want to get into that
because it's real easy.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
You bet. Tiger break time for BizTalk Radio quicker break
on Facebook Live. Questions comments for Greg. Let us know
they're those on Facebook Live in the comments section, your questions,
your comments as we continue Garden America. I'm Brian Main,
John Becknascar or Tiger Pealafox taking a break for these
messages and a big thank you re Fertilom, our major
sponsor here on Garden America. We are right back from
that break and again this is one of our longer segments,

(19:21):
so plenty of time for questions comments here on Garden America.
Greg Rupin is our guest, and we're discovering some things,
debunking some things that perhaps we didn't think about before,
or perhaps thought about them in the wrong way. Tiger.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, And you know we've talked with Greg before about
you know, native plants and low water plants, zero escaping,
and you know when we talk about irrigation hydrating them,
people always think, oh, man, you know, that's why I
don't want to plant, That's why I was hoping to
plant native plants was to not have to irrigate them,

(19:53):
to not have to put in an irrigation system that
goes along with it. But Greg, I mean the system
that you always been an advocate for. It's the most
easy and almost no brainer system that you can do
for a native garden. And that's just the idea of putting,
you know, one of those maybe tall worldly sprinklers or

(20:16):
rainbird sprinklers out there on a pedestal and just let
it act like rain and fall onto the soil. Don't
be real precise with it, because you know a lot
of the native shrubs and low water shrubs don't like
that dRIT system right at the base, you know, you
don't have to get real elaborate with it. And like
we were saying, if you do it once a week

(20:37):
in the summer months and maybe once a month in
the cooler months, it's really easy. Right, Like this is
like a you don't have to have some elaborate irrigation
system installed for this garden.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
Well, that's true. You know, everything we do that has
led to our success with native plants is about emulating
the natural ecology. Because by emulating the natural ecology, you
put in place the conditions that allow these incredible natural
processes to take place. And so the closest thing the

(21:09):
rainfall we have is overhead sprinkling. Our favorite overhead system
are actually mp rotators by Hunter in San Marcos, California,
and they provide the most efficiency the lowest volume application.

(21:31):
It's just like a gentle rainstorm, about point four inches
of equivalent precipitation an hour. And you could mount these
with ultraviolet rated PVC pipe right along the surface there
you don't have to bury them and put them monisers
and basically set them up head to head so that
you get complete covers throughout the planting. Because you're not

(21:53):
just watering individual plants. You're actually watering a whole ecosystem
and you're promoting you know, natural soil biology that supports it,
like microhizal fungi, which also happens to stabilize slopes. So
you're creating an ecosystem, you're creating a biome. But it's

(22:14):
not that difficult. And what you're getting for this very
light watering is a potentially fire resistant landscape that you know,
it's beautiful year round because we use a lot of
evergreen plants and has amazing habitat value. So it's full
of birds and butterflies, smells grapes from the stages, and

(22:35):
it's you know, stabilize the slopes and you know, helps
protect against fire and it's borne out. You know, in
all the homes that we had involved in really severe fires.
The caveat is I can't guarantee that a home won't

(22:56):
burn in a firestorm, right for reasons even having nothing
to do with a landscape, you know, but it's sure
create some real great defensible space and give us a
best chance of success while working with the native ecology
instead of stripping the hillside and think that's gonna save us.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
Yeah, definitely. I mean that's I think that's what people
are going to start to do this year, is you know,
go and look at their homes, see a slope, see
an area where they're just gonna be like, oh, I'm
just going to remove everything on it. That way the
fire can't get to my house.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
And you know, usually it's embers in a lot of situations.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
Right, That's what you know Greig mentioned, it's not if
you clear the shrubs. Now, you're right that that that
hedge that's fully saturated with water, which would normally catch
that ember and put it out before it got to
your home. Now you've opened it up and now it
can get straight into you know, the eve of your house,
or your wooden furniture kind of on your back patio,

(24:00):
or you know, some people still still have those wood
slatted roofs, you know, kind of a thing. And I
don't even know if those are legal anymore in California,
but I don't think there's a lot left hire exactly.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Greg. What about those people that want to plant ice plants?
What's your thoughts on that right up to the house.

Speaker 4 (24:20):
Yeah, so, yeah, you know. And one of the things
I want to mention is that, you know, most of
our clients and along the Wildland urban interface have properties
that are large enough to do all this treatment, you know,
on individual basis, but when you have a situation like
the Palisades or Eating Canyon, you know, these homes are

(24:45):
so closely packed together. Not to mention that a lot
of them are old homes that were really built the
current fire standards. Okay, now it's a different situation, and
you want to be creating these belts around the whole
community as your first line of defense, and a lot

(25:05):
of people would be suggesting ice plant, right, sure, I
mean that's that's kind of the natural go to. Well
guess what you would need three to four times the
water to get ice plant to a point of fire
resistance similar to what we achieved with natives. But it
also burns, okay, and and your hot and hot fig

(25:28):
type ice plant, you know, develops a fact underneath, and
boyd is that stuff burn. I have photos of freeway
fires of ice plant just burning away. So does red apple.
Red apple burns in nice kind of round circles, you know,
And so it's far from ideal not to mention that

(25:50):
it is really cuddy erosion control. In fact, it kind
of helps pull down these slopes and there's no there's
no microhizal fungi associated with help stabilize the soil particles.
And it's a really horrible habitat and it's just kind
of boring and ugly. You I mean, it's just, you know,
you could do so much better and promote our native

(26:11):
habitat and ecology instead of destroying it.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
And I don't know if you mentioned it. Sorry, I
was posting the link for people to be able to
see what the mp rotator sprinkler is. It's a link
that takes them right to the Hunter Irrigation website. But
also with the iceland, you have to water it way
more to keep it saturated, because you're right, Otherwise it
just dries out and then it all all the good benefits.
So you know, it's funny that you mentioned these kind

(26:34):
of fire breaks in communities because they're building a lot
here in the central San Diego area, Greg, and you
know a lot of these four or five story complexes,
and it's a neat process to see them build it
because you could see in the structure themselves where they
put fire breaks in the structures, you know, So meaning

(26:58):
you know, there's certain walls that are designed and if
there's a fire in this apartment building and it's on
this side, that firewall is designed to stop it from
spreading through the whole whole building. So you're thinking of
this more on a community level, like let's let's take
our community and say, hey, you know, we need to
put some kind of barrier in case, you know, this
neighborhood starts to go. How is it that we get

(27:20):
it from spreading to this neighborhood And then this neighborhood
and so on and so on, and you know, I
mean urban planning and development. You know, hopefully in the
future will start to you know, incorporate some of those
processes into the design, because you're right, I mean, that's
that is the biggest problem that happened up there in
la is that it was it just went through so

(27:40):
quick because there was no there was no check, there
was no there was no way for it to stop it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (27:46):
Yeah, Well, if you do it this way with these
native green belts that are lightly irrigated, it's a win win, right.
It looks beautiful, there's there's there. You have local character,
local sense of identity, and then you get the fire
resistant benefits. You get birds and butterflies, and it's a
great transition from the say, unmodified chaparral to the community.

(28:12):
And you sort of see this in a lot of communities,
but typically it's stuff like ice plant or lantana, right,
and they just don't on the same amount of water,
they would not exhibit the same level of fire resistance
that the natives are. Takes so much less water to

(28:34):
hydrate them, and it would be so beautiful.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Yeah, I was going to say, and you know, the
beauty that you get behind it is also another aspect
of it that is, you know, not achievable with those Hey, Greg,
in about a minute, we're going to take another break,
but I'd like to give our listeners actually some plants
because you know, like you said, you've done a lot
of research in this. You've worked with a lot of
organizations establishing you know, what are some of these processes about,

(29:00):
you know, making your landscape. But let's start giving our
listeners an opportunity to actually write down some of the
varieties that maybe you recommend. You know, you talked about
some of the things like screening some of the embers.
What are some shrubs that you would recommend to actually
get to that height and achieve that goal. But we're
going to take a break right now. We get back,
we'll continue chatting with Greg Rubin.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
Break for Bistalk Radio, Quicker Break here on Facebook Live.
Big thank you to Fertile on. Thank you for sponsoring us,
and of course are many other sponsors on bistok Radio.
Stay tuned. We are coming right back with Greg. This
is Garden America. Hey, those on bistalk Radio, thank you,
Welcome back from your break. This is the final segment
of Hour number one News coming up. Top of the hour.
We're back at six minutes after if indeed your market
does carry both hours of Garden America. Right now it

(29:44):
is back to Greg. Been talking about firefire prevention, debunking
some things, and you know, how to keep yourself safe
and you know, ice plant probably not the answer, among
other things.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
Yeah, and Greg, you know you let's start off a
little bit farther from the house, So you know, you
want to plant some kind of shrubs that's maybe gonna
you know, catch those embers coming through the air to
prevent them from getting to your actual home. What are
some things that you would recommend? What are some plant varieties?

Speaker 4 (30:11):
Well, I'll tell you right off the bat. What I
wouldn't recommend Palm trees. Yeah, if you see these videos,
they are absolutely the worst fire carries, the worst actors,
and spreading these embers home to home in a fairly
compact or fairly tidy space community, they are terrible. I

(30:33):
get rid of those things. I'm sorry they think think
San Diego is a tropical paradise. It is not. It
is a Mediterranean climate and they don't belong here, and
they are absolutely have always been the worst actors. So
that's what I don't recommend.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
And real quick, I want to hit that because you
you know, I want to give a visual for people.
And it's that classic scene of that Washington palm with
all that dry brush, all those dry fronds hanging down
from it.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Nobody cuts back.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
That nobody cuts back and it's you know, fifty sixty
feet in the air and the whole thing is on fire.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
Here's a good example, Tiger, you can identify with this
and Greg in the college area a couple of months
ago when that fire strata there by the canyon. Yeah,
and if you drive by there right now off Montezuma, Yeah,
it's all palm trees. It's all palm trees. They're burnt,
they're scorched, and that that piggybacks upon what you're you're
you're talking about, Greg.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
But they just think they catch that in the order.

Speaker 4 (31:26):
The worst aspect is that they're not dead right exactly
beautifully pruned. They grow and burn down your house again.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:35):
So yeah, so those are the palms that you're you're mentioning,
you know, and they and because they're so high and
they catch those embers when they release those embers. Now
those embers are now fifty sixty feet up in the
air when they get released, and now they can go
another quarter mile or whatever away from that point, and.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
You can still smell it to this day when you
drive by scorched.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
Okay, so no palms. What what do you recommend?

Speaker 4 (31:59):
Okay, here's what I recommend, so you know, first you know,
if you're beyond even the green belt, you want to
be sinning, not removing, not over thinning, spinning by about
any native chaparral removed the non natives. You basically you
chip up any limbs that you you remove, and definitely

(32:22):
the dead branche you put it right back down on
the ground to act as a mulch to help discourage
weeds from coming up after you've opened it up. Then
you hit your planted green belt. The first line of
divine of defense is almost like like a windbreak. And
you would put in taller natives, So I'll try to

(32:45):
list them here. Catalina cherry is a good one. Also,
thickamores and cottonwoods, even though they're not evergreen. I've seen
houses saved those trees. And also oak trees are wonderful
in this situation. Oak trees are as long as they're

(33:08):
not don't have a lot of weeds underneath them that
can act as a fire ladder. Oak trees can be
incredibly fire resilient. Okay, you'll get singed in that, but
then the leaves come like that. So all these kind
of around the perimeter. You don't do this mass planting
as heads you wanted to, you know, keep it down

(33:29):
to three or less, groups of three or less. But
then you can create overlapping coverage by going downslope and
putting another one to three trees that kind of overlaps
when you look straight out, but in fact they're separated
by you know, twenty feet or whatever.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
Yeah, so not just a line but some different levels, right.

Speaker 4 (33:51):
I mean it looks better from a design standpoint anyway,
But it also you're not creating a lot of you're
not creating this toy sold your effect with you know,
a lot of biomass all clumped together. You're you're kind
of breaking it up. Same thing with large shrubs too,
kind of down from there, stuff like toy on or

(34:14):
lemonade berry and a group scroups of one in three
and separate by maybe twenty thirty feet and it has
a beautiful natural look to it. And then finally you
unify the whole thing with ground covers, and one of
the best is backris or tardibrush Pigeon Point. Pigeon Point

(34:37):
is a selection from kind of central coast that grows
about a foot tall by nine to twelve feet across.
It's bright, evergreen, and it is one of the best
slope stabilizers I've ever worked. There's also groundcover forms of
wild lilac or cinopis. One of the most common is

(34:58):
Yankee Point. It can get eight to ten to twelve
feet across easily and it's about two feet tall blue flowers.
And there's also really great forms of manzanita that are
low growing oh archistaplus and archestaplus Franciscana where our Franciscan manzanita.

(35:23):
There's also beautiful colorful one called John Dorley, and there's
just a whole myriad of other groundcover forms of manzanita.
So this creates this beautiful evergreen landscape with foliar color
and contrasts. They take a little bit of supplemental irrigation
very well. But I also want to make a point

(35:47):
that fire resistance is much less about particular plant selections
and much more about maintaining light hydration. So some of
the worst fire bombs, like even Luckily and safe Is
benefit the most from that supplemental water.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Now, are there anything in that see and note this
man's anida backers grouping plants that you don't recommend, Like
you you see a lot of acacia, you know, in
our in our landscapes, and you know, people will plant
them like as a supplement of one of those. Is
there anything that you don't recommend people do for for

(36:26):
that level of planting.

Speaker 4 (36:27):
Yeah? Well, for one thing, akasha actually have a real
nasty zing to them. And you see a lot of
this akasha redolins along the freeways. From that that gray
one that's about three foot tall. Not one of my
favorite plants. I certainly don't recommend the ice plants, and

(36:48):
I probably would be you know, one of the problems
you've see these homes when people plant like junipers.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Oh yeah, yeah, so true. Hey, Greg, we're gonna have
to take another break. When we get back, we'll continue
chatting with Greg Rubin about fire prevention.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
Landscape, absolutely and coming up top of the hour for
BIS Talk Radio News we can back at just about
six minutes after. You're going to hold Greg over a
topic obviously that we're all very much interested and hopefully
you're learning something and hopefully we've debunked some things that
maybe you had a thought process prior to the show
this morning. So again we are going to take a
break for Bistalk Radio quicker break here on Facebook Live.

(37:22):
Do stay with us. Questions comments for Greg right there
on our Facebook page on Brian Main, John Begnescar, Tiger Palafox.
Thank you for tuning in. Happy weekend. This is Garden America. Alrighty,
we are back at those on Bistalk Radio. If you're
just joining us for hour two, welcome. You can always
go to our Facebook page Garden America Radio show every
Saturday morning eight o'clock. We kick things off eleven o'clock

(37:42):
or so on the East coast and to interact with
us live. Been talking about fires this morning and native
plans and the best way to surround your home with
what you should be growing, not what somebody else told
you to grow ice plants not a good idea. Learning
a lot this morning, Tiger. As we came back with Greg.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
Yeah, before the break, we were talking with Greg and
he was mentioning some of those level of plantings that
maybe you don't recommend, and you hit one that I
think still exists in some people's landscapes, kind of an
older generation of plant. But the juniper, right, the trailing juniper.
A lot of people will plant slopes and hillsides with that.

(38:20):
It's an evergreen, you know, but at the same time,
it's very tough to stay hydrated, and even when it
is hydrated, there's a lot of dry brush underneath it, right, Greg.

Speaker 4 (38:32):
Yes, and you see it, you see, yeah, And you
can see that also with Cyprus. You know, you get
in there and there's just so much dead you know,
old leaves and stuff that have accumulated in there. So
you know, people like the plant like a tying cypress
right around the house too, and I just they're just

(38:54):
not the best actors. And one home of a couple
of dozen them we have that got some scorching on it.
It was not from the natives planted all around. It
was from the junipers around the top. So in pine
trees too, you want to back those off. You don't
want those within maybe twenty feet of the home. You
you you know, they have a lot of resin in them,

(39:16):
and they can be quite volatile. Interestingly, one of the
ones that I've found to be volatile is European bay laurel.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Oh really, I lit my.

Speaker 4 (39:31):
Tree on fire because my barbecue was close. I never
had a hose nearby, but it was pretty scary.

Speaker 3 (39:38):
So and that's so funny because I feel like bay
laurels to me seem like they're a very well hydrated plant.
They always seem very lush, you know, and.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
Some Mediterranean plants, yeah, kind of think you think it
would be.

Speaker 4 (39:50):
But I can tell you the place smelled great afterwards.
That is a lot of oil, just a lot of
oil in there.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
Yeah, or like or like when a seal via hillside
goes up, you know, it's like, oh wow, it's smelling
nice out here. We all got a good cleansing, a
good smudge.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
What about rosemary now that we're in that area, is
because a lot of things that smell, but a lot
of people use rosemary as the groundcover.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
Have you had experience? Sorry, no, no, no.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
If I could tell you my experience with groundcover rosemary
is very interesting because it actually provided a real contrast
between native plants and rosemary's on a hillside, and that
was that we had During the Witch Creek fire, we
had a client up in Ramona Hills whose slope was
basically covered in groundcover rosemary, but there also been some

(40:44):
flat top buckweet that had just naturally seeded in there,
and the slope was being watered about twice a month. Okay,
and here comes the fire. Afterwards the rosemary is nothing
but a black smudge and the buck leaps all had
green leaves on them.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
Oh wow.

Speaker 4 (41:06):
So clearly it wasn't enough supplemental irrigation to hydrate the rosemary.
You probably need about once or twice a week to
really make it a viable fire resistant grounds over whereas
on fourteen days the buckwheets are still covered, you know,
not densely, but there is still green leaves all over it.

(41:27):
And they, you know, they did fine. So that was
kind of an interesting side by side comparison based on irrigation.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
Well you probably see this too with some of the
areas that you've worked with clients in in the recovery
as well. Like you know, like you just said, if
they want rosemary again, they're going to have to plant
rosemary again to get it to be in that area where,
like you said, with the buckwheat with see you know this,

(41:55):
you know man's anita coyote bush. Oh, you know, they
will get burned, they won't look good, but they actually
can come back from that fire sometimes, right, I mean,
isn't that just so fascinating that it killed one plant
completely you will not come back. But yet in the
same area there are plants and they were damaged, but

(42:17):
they will come back. And so when you talk about replanting,
you know, all you have to do is wait. It's
pretty fascinating.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (42:25):
And actually I had another property in Ramona during the
Witch Creek fire where the client had a giant wooden
deck at the back. I we didn't build that, but
that's what they had. And we had the hillside covered
in a very similar fashion with round covers, shrubs, a
couple of trees at the base, and the plants were sins.

(42:48):
But they all survived and came back rather rapidly. And
it didn't generate enough heat to burn this huge wooden deck.
And so you know, you've got that catching and cooling phenomenon.
And I just want to mention the Friday people aren't
looking at the aerodynamics of what's going on these slows.

(43:09):
I used to be an aerospace engineer. I'm a pilot,
and one thing that's really missing from this is a
real understanding of the aerodynamics of one hundred miles an
hour winds coming over mountains and impinging straight down on
communities and how the how the these you know, plantings
in that really break up those sloes and create what

(43:32):
we call turbulence and you know, start to scatter the
embers instead of having this stream as thick as the
firefalls the seventy going sideways that seventy to one hundred
miles an hour and just just lasting your home. Yeah,
I mean House Saints look like Hiroshima.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
Yeah, yeah, it went through there so quick. As you mentioned, I.

Speaker 4 (43:56):
Don't believe what I was looking at, Tiger.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
We have some questions, Yeah, let's get your listeners in
Lenora and Canyon Country. Greg wants to know if what
about crate myrtle and red buds. Is there anything really
bad about them or anything good? Or are they right
in the middle.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
You know, they're not bad. You know, with any of those,
you don't have a lot of biomass, right, and it's
all about hydration, right, So you know, if you're watering
and red buds and crate myrtles actually have pretty similar
water requirements. Red buds actually kind of tend to grow
along just set back from streams and stuff. And so

(44:43):
if you're watering them, again, I can't guarantee your household
and burn, but if you're watering them, you know about
once a week on established plants, that's usually pretty good.
And yeah, I I you know, I wouldn't go out
of my way to remove the crate.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Myrtle, okay. And then Carla in Huntington Beach wants to
know if there are some selvis that would be beneficial.

Speaker 4 (45:07):
So again, salvias and buckwheats can actually really benefit the
most in this light irrigation.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
So what we often do is we'll put.

Speaker 4 (45:16):
Ground cover stages. There's a bunch of them out there.
These bliss Is one not one of Thetaris toys. There's
jade carpet. And then we might occasionally use something like
a Cleveland Sage hybrid like pose O Blue that has

(45:36):
a lot of purple sage in it too, which can
take water. And just dot those in here and there,
widely separated for color, fragrance and birds and butterflies. But yes,
there are lots of sages that end up in these
gardens and they've done fine.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
And then Lila and Powie wants to know about lavender.

Speaker 4 (46:01):
Lavender is one of the few non natives that will
kind of plug into these landscapes. But it can really
burn because it's really heavy on the oil. You probably
need to be water and lavender a couple of times
a week, which is almost a upper limit to at
least in part some fire resistance. But then again, if

(46:22):
it's a you know, a little groups here and there
dot along the edge of the landscape, and it's getting
water with the rest of them, you're probably fine.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
Yeah. I think I hit all the questions.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
We got one more. Oh, it's from John and Fallbrook
and it has nothing to do with the topic. It's
just that a plant, a native that I'm fascinated with,
and I have a feeling I can't grow it. But
since Greg's the expert, I'm just going to ask him.
I'm fascinated with California paeonies. Is it possible to grow those?

(46:56):
Should I just enjoy them on my nature walks?

Speaker 3 (46:59):
Or or.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
If it is possible, where could.

Speaker 4 (47:03):
I get one they're fascinatingly difficult. They actually are a
very community oriented plant. You see it growing in the
understory of chaparral and especially associated with oh pries and
especially associated with angelman oaks. There are a lot of
a lot of symbiosis going on there.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Hey, Greg, we got we got to take a quick break.
Hold that trade of thought here for our friends on
that BIZ Talk Radio, so again to do stay with us,
and we continue with Greg Ruben here and yes, Garden America,
whatever's on your mind? Facebook Live questions comments as you've
heard previously with those questions here even a question from
John and Fallbrook that was nice anyway back after these
messages for biz Talk Radio, stay with us. It is

(47:45):
Garden America just joining us. Thank you so much. Those
that have been with us since the very beginning. We
do appreciate that as we continue learning about fires and
learning what the plant would not the plant and the
reasons why with the various shrubs and trees that we've
discussed this morning. Tiger.

Speaker 3 (47:59):
Yeah, and Greg was just talking to John about what
was the plant that.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
You wanted California peonis.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
California peenies, and you do have that area down on
the lower edge. Maybe that would work, right, A big
community of California natives down below.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Yeah, I was. I was wondering though about the area
right by my driveway that's not under irrigation and is
mostly DG, and I was wondering if they would grow up.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
It just sounds like they just need a community, they
need a nice little family.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
Well, I wasn't thinking about the symbiosis aspect of.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
Yeah, exactly. Hey, hey Greg, lots lots of great information shared,
you know on today's program about you know, planting age,
what to think about fire prevention, maintenance down the road.
How can people reach out to you if they want
more information?

Speaker 4 (48:53):
Yeah, thank you? So I think the the one the
method that we keep the most up to date is
our company Facebook page, and so you just search for
uh it's a long name, California's aposps own Own Native

(49:14):
Landscape Design.

Speaker 3 (49:16):
And.

Speaker 4 (49:18):
We keep up keep very current information, current projects we're
working on, lots of pictures, lots of anecdotes there. We
also have a website that is being completely redone now,
so it's kind of what's up there is kind of old,
but that is www dot cal owned c a l

(49:39):
own dot com.

Speaker 3 (49:41):
Perfect and I'll share that for our viewers and listeners
right now on to the social media. And you know,
what would you say, I mean, if people were interested
in getting more information, I mean, are you going all
the way down for you know, and not necessarily visit,
but like, you know, do you do you think that
that you could help people, like all the way down

(50:02):
through to the border out to East County San Diego
up into the Orange County. Where where's your work area?

Speaker 4 (50:09):
Yeah, that's that's so I if I if we're doing installations,
we're generally in San Diego County, more coastal than desert.
But I'll do consultations, you know, far in excess to that.
You know, I've done them all the way up in

(50:29):
northern California. I do a lot of presentations. I have
a pretty good fly show that I keep updating. Even
my first book, The California Native Landscape, there's a whole
chapter devoted to just fire and these fire escapes perfect.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
And thank you very much, Greg. Lots of good information.
If you continue to ask questions, we'll try to get
them to Greg, get answers for you. Hopefully we can
answer them for you. Have a great rest of the weekend,
Greg and go luck with everything. Talk to you again soon.

Speaker 4 (51:02):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
All right, okay, so there you go.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
We did get some questions on roses.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
Yeah, I saw what about roses, John Fire roses.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
Well, one of the question is can they work in
a native landscape? And there are native California roses, right,
Rosa Californica. You gave me one for Christmas a few
years ago, and I have that growing on a hillside
and it's not quite as drought tolerant as rose of minuteifolia,

(51:36):
which grows in the really dry areas and native down
from San Diego to Baja. But those are the types
of roses you would have to have if you had
a native landscape, only because roses need a little more water. Yeah, right,
so if you've got a dry area, it's going to
be hard to work roses into that.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
Yeah, that's true. But I mean they compliment a native
landscape really well. And even the ones that you work
with a lot, like the single blossom, the single petal roses,
they they they almost look like they could be part
of the native California native landscape plants, because that's what
a lot of the native one look like, you know,

(52:15):
the watering is one issue, but I mean, I don't know.
I kind of feel the plant itself compliments all the
all the design aspects that you you are trying to
achieve when you're doing a native landscape too well.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
Some people say that anyone's quality of life is enhanced
by putting roses around your home.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
People.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
You know she she likes roses.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
She does, but they're all around her home.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
What is her favorite rose?

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Hydrangea answer everything? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
She likes, say in an Italian rose called Tempemoderny, which.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
Is well, I've never heard of that.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
It's Italian for modern times. And then it's a bicolor rose,
really bright. It's one you would like, I think, because
it's bright oranges and reds and a little bit of
yellows in there. It just kind of lights up the landscape.
Then she has another one that's her favorite. The name
escapes me at the moment, but it's one of key

(53:17):
series hybrids that's kind of a magenta color. She likes
the magenta color and ros.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
She must like sunrises and sunsets.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
Then she loved that whole musical, did she? Yeah, Fiddler
on the Roof. So you're referring to yeah, or were
you referring to the rose called Sunrise Sunset.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Tequila Sunrise? Now is tequila Sunrise? Is that a miniature
or is that not? No?

Speaker 2 (53:42):
No, no, it's a flora bunch, flora bunder shrub.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
You know.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
One of the things now that we're on the subject
of roses.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
Which I know you hate, but okay, John, try to
hang in there a lot.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
You know, we were talking prior to the show about
about today's generation not relating to past generations because they
have a whole different mindset. And one of the things
that I don't think we teach our younger generation is
history and a lot of and I'm fascinated by history

(54:17):
as it relates to roses, and a lot of times
I will come in contact with a rose and learn
history just because of the name of the.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
Rose, because of what surround what surrounds the history of
the rose was well or.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
The actual name, actual name, like I just there's a
Alistair Clark was Australia's most famous rose breeder. He was
in the twenties and thirties, nineteen twenties, nineteen thirties up
to the forties. He had a lot of roses named
after race horses because he liked the races. Sure, but

(54:49):
a lot named after women. And I Desconso Gardens had
a collection of his climbers, and there's one. Somebody brought
me some cuttings about two months ago. So I have
some of these growing now. And there's one called Amy Johnson.
And do you have any idea who Amy Johnson is?

Speaker 1 (55:10):
Sounds like the girl next door?

Speaker 2 (55:12):
Well, she was an early av a trix and in
nineteen I think it was around nineteen thirty, she made
the first flight solo flight from from England to Australia,
from London to Australia, which I found fascinating. But even
more fascinating was it seems like all those those aviatrixes die.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
Oh no, And she wasn't a safe profession back in
the day.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
Well, that's true.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
It was overshadowed by you know who at the time.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
Well, Amelia Earhart. Yeah, and I think I saw some
pictures of the two of them together.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
But she, you know, Amelia Earhart was lost. No one
ever knew what happened to her, right, but she went
made for in Australia back to England. Amy Johnson, we're
talking about but was shut down in the English Channel

(56:10):
friendly fire, you know from people who were I think
this was during the early part of the war.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
That's a fascinating story.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
And she wasn't killed, but ended up in the English
Channel and I think she drowned there.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
So you know, you really Tiger, this is just turning
him apart.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
But without me, but.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
What that story, you would have never even heard that.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
I never would have heard of Amy Johnson without that
knowing about that rose.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
So who was the was it? Alistair? Who's the guy
that you just sister Clark? Okay, you said something kind
of interesting to me, and I'm trying to get this
because this would be a fun game to play racehorse
a rose. And it's almost like was the rose named
this first? And then they made the racehorses name after
the rose? Or was it a racehorse and then they

(57:00):
shows it because there's some weird racehorse names, right.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
It was the racehorse first, then the roast okay, And
those horses are usually the person who owns the horse.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
There's something very personal about that name and the reason
why they give it. Yeah, Like let's say you like
gambling gambler's choice, right, coming on the outside of the
final fur along is gambler's choice. Okay, So with that
in mind, we're going to take a break. Hey, not
open phones, we don't do that anymore. We do open
Facebook comments and questions. So do stay with us whatever's

(57:29):
on your mind. Garden America back after these messages for
biz Talk Radio. Hey, how about that, We are right
back at it. Welcome to Garden America for just joining us.
Some people stay through the whole show, so I just
come in, take a gander, and then leave. That's fine.
Pick up whatever information that you so desire, and hopefully
that this has been stimulating for you so far.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Linda U Pinreating was mentioning that in her area, digger
pines go up like Roman candles in a fire.

Speaker 3 (57:57):
Digger pines. Do you know what that is?

Speaker 2 (57:59):
I don't know that is it's pinus species.

Speaker 3 (58:05):
Species digger Right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
It seems like something you'd say about anything. What it is?

Speaker 3 (58:14):
It is?

Speaker 1 (58:15):
Species is just answer. No one's going to challenge you
on that.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
Yeah, well, I mean down here we have black pines.
What aleppo pine? I mean obviously we talked about tory pine,
but but you.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
Haven't mentioned porcupine.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
We don't have them here we don't have we did, yeah,
but and you know, to what Greg was talking about
a lot of times, the biggest issue is they get
so much dead growth in the plant itself that you know,
that's what goes up, and that's what collects the embers.
But if you lace it out, if you keep it thin,

(58:55):
hopefully it won't gather that growth.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
You know, he talked about palm tree. If you know
what really bugs me a boy, palm tree. I mean
I do like them. I mean, not for the fire thing,
but yeah, they add a nice tropical look. If you're
driving around town and you see this and those dead
fronds are hanging and they look terrible, I mean it
just like, come on, rats, fire hazard, every reason to

(59:21):
take care of those, but you see it, they're just
left alone.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
You know, this probably isn't fair since Greg's not here
to defend himself, but I'm wondering if that general generalization
might be too broad to mention palm yeah, because I
mean there's hundreds and hundreds of varieties of palms and
the one.

Speaker 3 (59:41):
That Kentia isn't going to have that problem.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
Right, And there's dwarf palms, and and there's sight kids
and things that that I think personally think they add
to our landscape. Yeah, and Washingtonias that have the skirt
are the bad ones. But aren't they.

Speaker 3 (59:58):
Native Washington I think Mexico, Like you know what I mean,
I think they're closely native.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Well, I know Washingtonia robust native to Mexico. Right, So
you're saying Washington Philippa is Isn't that the one that's
native to the Palm Springs area?

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
But I thought that that would be good to research that.
I don't I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
It may not be native, but I do know that
there are, you know, some canyons and palm springs.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
That's what Tiger's saying is if the the border was
a little further south than they would be native.

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
No, that is a big That is a big lot
of people. Yeah, exactly exactly. But but you know you're
right because also, I mean, if we go to the
other side, like I just mentioned King palms, Kentia palms,
those self cleaning, you know, they're they're they're they don't
do they don't have the same problem as you know,

(01:00:50):
the the Washingtonia palms or the Canariensis that develop that
skirt of just dry brush and all of that, right,
you know, and like U said, dwarf palms also that
don't even get tall enough to kind of create that
problem out there, and you know they do add to
our landscape here and there. Yeah, yeah, I mean you

(01:01:12):
see those Washingtonians growing cracks and sidewalks.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Oh my gosh, that's probably the biggest weed on my
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
What they said, we don't need no stinking water.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
You know, it's funny because I am so fascinated by
plant reproduction by seed lynks. You know, like I've talked
about this before, Like why is it that we don't
see avocados just growing everywhere in Fallbrook? You know, like
there's thousands of their own? Yeah, like there's there are
they There's thousands of acres of horchard up there. Why

(01:01:44):
have we not just seen them develop and grow naturally
throughout Fallbrook? That is one plant that at the base
of it, those seed links will come up so quick
and so many of them wherever they are. It is,
it is, it has no problem reproducing. It's we are

(01:02:05):
in it's perfect climate.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
For So are you saying I shouldn't plant those five
on my hill?

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
Yeah? Exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
I'm kind of excited. Tiger was out to my house
last week. By the way, if you're in the San
Diego area and you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Want to drop by John's house, how do you get there?

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
No, No, I was going to say, if you need
any landscape consultation or any work done. You know, Uh
was it eco gardener?

Speaker 4 (01:02:26):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
Is that what they can and you've expanded?

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
Yeah, exactly. Rook.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
Now right with that, you merged. I guess you took over.
It's what you did over a company.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Tiger was thinking, John is such a pain in the
neck all the way up and fall.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
Put a company.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
I've got to put a company in there. Yeah, I'm
excited because he came up and he's going to as
soon as he works in the schedule. I guess start
on putting the formal rose beds in the back and
on that hillside in the back of the house. I've
got I forget if I told you five or six
avocados that I want to put in. So I originally

(01:03:05):
thought of putting other things on the hill, but you know,
we use a lot of avocados.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
What kind of avocados are.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
You always got those super cool ones you remember he
listed he brought Did you bring him in one time.
I think when you had when you got them online,
I might have might have such cool varieties.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
The one that was the I'm interested in because I've
never seen one is Marcus Pumpkin, and I think that
might be more of a West Indian type avocado, which
are going to be the most tender for for our area.

Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
You know, the.

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
Guatemalans are also tender. Those are like the has, but
not as tender as a West Indian. And the Mexican
varieties are the hardiest. So if you're in an area
that just gets some frost, you know, want to use questions,
I do see a lot popping up here real quick.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Then I will answer. Because Greg text me regarding our
palm this and he wrote, Philip Philifora, the one you
mentioned does not do well near the coast, so it's
mostly robust as what we see kind of where we
live and the Canary Island date palms. So he was
just saying, you know, and Philip Philippa is native. He
did say that yet.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
Okay, so stop, you're both right exactly all right? Yeah,
And I was pretty sure that's what he was referring to.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
But all right, scroll back up.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
What do we got John, Oh, let's see how horrible
grape pine? Poor Amy Johnson? Okay, John, and Newport Beach
says he's got daffodils and paper whites already blooming. Yea,
they should be blooming now, right, Yeah, so that's not unusual.

(01:04:48):
And he says one of the paper whites is amazingly
he says, startingly fragrant, with eight small, multi pedaled flowers
on the stalk. How do I prop How do identify
and propagate? I'm not sure what he means by multi pedal?
Does he mean double flowering? So if it's a double

(01:05:09):
I don't think there are double flowering paper whites.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Are there?

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
There's double flowering narciss like it, so leal door one.
So it depends on the color. But if it's white,
extremely fragrant. We've talked before about how there's different varieties
of paper whites.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
I like how he says they're startling.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Yeah, yeah, if it's startling in a good sense, you
really like it. It's probably a variety called galilee.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
It doesn't mean it's bad.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
It's probably a variety called Seeva. And and the reason
all those bad.

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
How do I propagate? They just you just dig them
up and did.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Them well, well, you divide them. After there, the leaves
die down because the you go through that full side
on any of those bulbs, you know, after they bloom,
they have to replenish the bulb, and they do that
by photosynthesizing through the leaves. The leaves build the bulb
back up, and then the leaves turn brown and die.

(01:06:13):
Once that happens, the plant's storming, you can dig it
up and you can move the bulbs around so.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
It completely dies the foliage and goes, you know, down
to the ground. Can you do it almost like right
after that or do you have to wait another month
or so? Right after that? That means that's telling you
it's gone through its whole cycle.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
And a lot of people don't like bulb leaves because
they're kind of messy laying their green. A tip would
be to just take a piece of tie tape and
tie them together so that it looks neaterter, but you
know they're still going to be able to grow and
replenish the bulb.

Speaker 3 (01:07:01):
There's Kevin asked the question for me, what genus species
of plants have the most varieties? Pines, palms, I don't know, Wow,
most varieties, what genus species. That's a tough question because
there's a lot of stuff out there that falls under
a lot of the same genus, you know what I mean,

(01:07:21):
And then they get branched off. And John always says
the only reason why the the the Botanists still exists
is to just completely keep changing names of plants.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
They get bored because they've they've done all their work.

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
They've done all the work, They've done all the work,
and they're like, ah, this this one has another leaflet
over here, so we're gonna now completely change it into
another category.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
And taxonomous and this one has a red tip at
the end. Never noticed that before. Exactly we're going to
change it. We're going to take a break right now.
One more segment after this. That's how fast this show
has gone. And they will continue to uh to breeze
along here as you enjoy your weekend whenever you're listening
to us here in his guard in America break time
BIS talk radio back after these messages, ladies and gentlemen,

(01:08:07):
boys and girls. That's uh, that's it, Well, not yet,
we've made it to the final segment. That's what I'm
trying to say. Another seven minutes or so eight minutes
until we have to say our goodbyes for this week.
So here we go. What are we doing? What's going on?

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):
This is interesting. I didn't know this, maybe you guys did.
But Tanya and San Jose says that last summer she
visited the Western Antique Automobile and Aeroplane Museum in Hood River, Oregon.

Speaker 1 (01:08:35):
Well that sounds fun.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Have you ever heard of this?

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
No? But I love the content.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
But she said they had one of those continuous running
films about historic women in flight. Oh cool, So I
betting me Johnson's in there. Yeah, yeah, what a story,
you know?

Speaker 3 (01:08:52):
And I mean male or female, who just whoever you
are back when they were pying years of something. It
fascinates me because because I mean, can you imagine, like
you know nowadays, if I don't have cell service, I
feel adventurous, you know what I mean? Like I'm living

(01:09:14):
on the edge. I cannot I cannot get a hold
of someone right now, and I'm living dangerously. You're over
the middle of the ocean. Your your devices that are
telling you direction.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
Are sometimes they rudimentary at times.

Speaker 3 (01:09:31):
Don't you know? You have zero contact with anyone else,
and you're out there all alone, like for for such a
long period of time.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
You know, you just amazing mentioned pioneers and people trying
things for the first time, whether it's an invention, whether
it's trying a food. There was a guy, I believe
he's a Frenchman and he was developing the first parachute
and I think he was scary. Well, I think he
would throw things off weighted with yeah, okay, So then
he says, you know what I'm gonna do. I want

(01:10:00):
to jump off the Eiffel Tower with my parachute. I
didn't for him. He went down.

Speaker 3 (01:10:06):
Like like bricks man.

Speaker 1 (01:10:08):
And they've got like old footage, you know, real kind
of rainy old footage of him. But that's what he's
gonna do. I'm gonna prove this parachute work.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
And it didn't like the bulletproof vests, like I'm going
to improve this works. Shoot me.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
I mean, I mean really, And that's how you get
to where we are in a lot of cases. Yeah,
you know, I don't think I want to be the
first one to try anything.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
And someone is that like the first crash test stummy
that came after.

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
That, probably, but yeah, you're right, there's there's videos of
them back in the day trying out football helmets and
he smashed their heads against these walls and you know,
probably back when it was leather and not even so
much protection. Yeah, exactly, and they're like, oh wow.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
Leonora wants to know how long she can or how
long we need to keep the daffodil leaves after flowering.
That's what we were saying forever until they turned around
completely brown. And then you can claim ut like.

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
You said forever in a day, didn't you.

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
Yeah, so yeah, they have to completely fall to the
ground and you know, no vertical element of it whatsoever,
and then you'll be good to go.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
Kevin wants to know what genus our species of plants
has varieties? Does he mean family? If he means family
of plants, I think it's orchids.

Speaker 3 (01:11:28):
Yeah, yeah, we've talked about that before. Orchids do have
the most.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
Let's see, we got another one here. Tanya wants to
know can I hard prune her sweet olive tiger? That
would be osmanthus.

Speaker 3 (01:11:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:45):
She said it used to be shaded by the neighbors
trees and they're gone, so now she's got these long branches.

Speaker 3 (01:11:53):
That are I mean, Okay, I was gonna say, sometimes
the hard prune causes those long branches, right.

Speaker 2 (01:12:01):
Yeah, but I think she's talking about there they've lost
their leaves down below and just leaves at the end.
You can hrd pruna. This would be my recommendation, Tiger,
tell me if you agree. But the safest way to
prune it would be a third at a time. I
would prune back a third and you can pick out
the branches you want just to reduce the size, and

(01:12:22):
wait until those leaves have sprouted on the stems, on
the bare stems. Then you can go back and cut
back another third. So after three prunings, eventually you've reduced that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
That sounds very safe.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
Yeah, And the reason I mentioned that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:36):
But what's the time frame you're going to say to
space out those prunings.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
Well, until the new leaves have come out on the
ones that's going to take It could take could take
a couple of years.

Speaker 3 (01:12:47):
Even, yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know, so it's not a
lot more growth or right, it's not a not necessarily
That's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:12:53):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:12:53):
What I was talking about right now is that some
people think, oh, a hard prune will save me from
pruning more in the future. And sometimes hard prune creates
a bigger problem.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
Where because it encourages fast growth faster.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
Speaking of trees, are you ever up in Scripts Ranch
area in my area that were by right by Scripts
Ranch High School?

Speaker 3 (01:13:11):
Uh huh, Yeah, there's these trees that they've stumped, they've topped.

Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
No, I mean, I can't even I don't even think
pruning is the right word. They were dead, They've got
the little bits of starting to But what is that?
Why did they do such talk about a hard prune.
I mean they just look like huge stumps, is what.
They look so ugly? What's up with that? You know?

Speaker 3 (01:13:36):
I mean they do that to try to cut back,
like John saying, it's a radical amount of growth to
prevent it, but they don't realize it's it's creating the problem.
And where if you cut back a third, wait another
year or two, cut back another third and I.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
Thought they were dead, but they're not. They just went
and they just trimmed everything away.

Speaker 3 (01:14:00):
And once they do that, the tree is I would argue,
it's not correctable.

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
I'm gonna take a picture. Yeah, okay, we got a
couple of minutes, John, go ahead, two minutes. All right.

Speaker 2 (01:14:10):
Veronica wants to know if red Sage is okay to
keep as the groundcover. I don't know what red sage is.

Speaker 3 (01:14:15):
Do you no?

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
Maybe that's something Greg knows, red sage. Yeah, let's see.
Carla wants to know what's the process of redonating a
rose to the auction redonating? Yeah, sorry, I bought this.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
Wait a minute, like I think I thought you said
last year there was I don't know. I don't want
to call it like a good will auction, but people
that want to redonate now we're going to auction off
used roses. Isn't that what you said last year? So
Carly might be in luck.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
Well, all Carla has to do is send me a
note of what she's going to have and then bring
it to the auction and we'll put it put it
up for bidding. Are next auction, by the way, is
in person. It's in October. We have an online auction
only in May, first first week in May.

Speaker 1 (01:15:11):
Hey, we're gonna wrap things up here. I'm looking at
this clock.

Speaker 2 (01:15:13):
I got a lot of other things to talk about.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
We'll bring it next week, all right. Hey, thanks to
Greg Rubin. Thank you for the incredible information. Thank you
for your debunking, thank you for teaching us new things,
thank you for watching, thank you for listening. Biz Talk Radio.
For the entire crew, I'm Brian Main, John Begnasco, Tyger Palafox.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, have a safe week,
and we'll do it again next week. Right here, it
is Guarden America. Thank you, be safe, and we'll do

(01:15:35):
it again next time. Here and again it is Garden America.

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Fire Prevention Landscapes with Greg Rubin - Garden America Podcasts & Radio Show [1.25.25]

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Fire Prevention Landscapes with Greg Rubin - Garden America Podcasts & Radio Show [1.25.25]