Plant low plants in Zone 1 and add hardscape to create plant islands; clear all vegetation in Zone 0. (Photo by Saxon Holt)
Fire travels faster up hillsides, preheating fuel along the way, requiring greater spacing of plants and trees. (Courtesy of Fire Safe Marin)
UC Marin Master Gardeners’ 3D model will help you visualize fire-smart landscaping. (Courtesy of UC Marin Master Gardeners)
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Plant low plants in Zone 1 and add hardscape to create plant islands; clear all vegetation in Zone 0. (Photo by Saxon Holt)
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Come visit the UC Marin Master Gardeners’ area at Ember Stomp to see beautiful, Earth-friendly, fire-smart landscaping and learn how to adapt your garden to help your home survive wildfires. The free event is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 6 at the Marin County Fairgrounds.
Presented by Fire Safe Marin, the fourth annual Ember Stomp will also show you how to harden your home and remove combustibles and organics from Zone 0, the first 5 feet around your house, to create an ember-resistant barrier to help preserve your structure. You can watch a live burn demonstration to learn about fire behavior. Your children can meet firefighting sheep and goats and head to the play area, which features a magician, face painting, sing-alongs and interactive games.
After you enter Ember Stomp, UC Marin Master Gardeners will greet you with several interactive displays that demonstrate how to adapt your Marin garden using fire-smart practices, helping you envision your garden in a new and appealing way. Our focus will be on the area beyond Zone 0, just past the first 5 feet around your home, called Zone 1.
UC Marin Master Gardeners’ displays will include:
• A garden oasis revealing how moving plants beyond Zone 0 can be beautiful while providing interest and privacy.
• A three-dimensional model illustrating how to strategically place plants. The model is built to scale, stimulating educational conversation and facilitating easy understanding of various fire-smart steps.
• Plant examples with fire-smart characteristics to increase the odds your home will survive a wildfire. Choose plants for your garden that don’t produce excessive dead, dry or fine debris that can become fuel. (Avoid bamboo, eucalyptus, Italian cypress and pine trees.)
• Steps to take to ensure consistent maintenance, keeping your landscape nicely groomed, hydrated, trimmed, correctly mulched and free of debris.
• An interactive demonstration to show how fire spreads across the landscape and transfers to the house. A “lean, clean and green” Zone 1 (5 to 30 feet from the house) reduces heat and fire movement. We will have examples of inviting gardens that are appealing from the curb as well as from inside your home, as you gaze out beyond your Zone 0 defensible space. We will show you how to use noncombustible materials for walkways, such as gravel, brick or stone, and break up mulched and planted areas with hardscape to create plant islands to interrupt a fire’s path.
• Mulch examples to improve soil structure and enhance your garden’s overall appearance. You’ll be able to see various mulches and learn which ones are best (composted wood chips to a depth of 2 inches in Zone 1) and which to avoid (gorilla hair).
• For hillside homes, illustrations of appropriate plant spacing on slopes to slow a fire’s travel, while creating beauty, enhancing privacy and stabilizing hillsides. You will learn that the steeper the slope, the more horizontal spacing you need between plants and trees to keep fire from spreading.
• Examples of native and nonnative plants that use less water, avoid fertilizer and pesticides, and attract pollinators. We will also show you how to consider a plant’s size at maturity before you purchase it to help have appropriate horizontal and vertical plant spacing.
• Pruning demonstrations to help maintain your fire-smart garden. We will show you how to limb up your tree’s branches to provide vertical spacing (for larger trees, remove branches 10 feet up from the ground; for smaller trees, one-third the height), how to eliminate dead, dying or diseased materials and how to create more open space by breaking up continuous vegetation, like hedges, that move fire across your garden. See how pruning can enhance a plant’s beauty as well as make your garden more fire-safe.
Members of the UC Marin Master Gardeners look forward to seeing you at Ember Stomp and helping you adapt your garden. For more information about fire-smart landscaping, visit ucanr.edu/site/uc-marin-master-gardeners/fire-smart-landscaping.
Ember Stomp is free; food and beverages will be available for purchase. For more information, visit firesafemarin.org/ember-stomp-2025.
Sponsored by UC Cooperative Extension, the University of California Marin Master Gardeners provides science- and research-based information for Marin home gardeners. Email questions to helpdesk@marinmg.org. Attach photos for inquiries about plant pests or diseases. Please call 415-473-4910 to see when a master gardener will be at the office or drop off samples 24/7 in the sample box outside the office. To attend a gardening workshop or subscribe to Leaflet, a free quarterly e-newsletter, go to marinmg.ucanr.edu.
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