How This Garden in the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone Puts Zones 0, 1, and 2 To Use

Take a tour of a California native plant garden designed by the homeowner for wildfire resilience. Learn the basics of Defensible Space and Zones 0, 1, and 2. Using appropriate plants and spacing residents can continue to support habitat while creating a space less vulnerable to ember ignition.

To learn more, check out these links:

– Landcaping for Wildfire Resilience: https://theodorepayne.org/landscaping… 

– Rethinking Resilience to Wildfire , Digital Guide Download:  https://bit.ly/39W416N 

– Home Hardening : https://defensiblespace.org

– CAL FIRE: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/6a9cb66bb1824cd98756812af41292a0
Fire Hazard Severity Zone Viewer : Find your Fire Hazard Severity and local jurisdiction

– Firescaping Your Home: https://store.theodorepayne.org/products/firescaping-your-home-a-manual-for-readiness-in-wildfire-country
A must-have book for homeowners looking to fight the risks of wildfire spreading to their homes and property

Disclaimer: The information provided in this video is for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice. Always check with your local ordinances, safety guidelines, and insurance policies before taking any actions related to wildfire prevention or response. For more detailed and specific information, please refer to CalFire or your local fire authority. Stay safe and informed.

Project Director: Erik Blank, Horticultural Educator and Garden Lead, Theodore Payne Foundation and Maryanne Pittman, Director of Public Programs, Theodore Payne Foundation
Video Direction and Editing: Hannah Perez, Theodore Payne Foundation
Additional Photos: Diego Blanco

[Music] Hello, my name is Robin Justice and today we’re here at my California native plant garden in Tahunga, California, which is actually part of the city of Los Angeles. Hi, my name is Eric Blank. I’m the horicultural educator at Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants. This garden is located in a very high fire hazard severity zone. It’s quite a mouthful. What does it mean? It means that this area has been designated uh by the office of the state fire marshall to uh be susceptible to a highintensity fastmoving wildfire. That’s the bad news. So, the good news is that through good design, appropriate plant selection, and the principles of defensible space, Robin has created a resilient garden that supports habitat right here in an urban setting. Today, we will be walking you through zone zero, zone one and two, and showing you how Robin’s design choices have brought these fire defensive principles to life. The zone zero is the area. I think the fire department defines it about 5t from your house. So what we’ve tried to do is all around it’s minimal plants and a lot of hardscape and gravel. So there’s actually nothing around the perimeter of the house other than potted plants and small sort of ephemeral plants that are cleared out periodically. These poppies come up on their own and I cut them back, but they’re all things that wouldn’t provide much fuel. Well, we’re standing in zone one and it’s uh 5 to 30 feet. So, this is a zone where you’re supposed to keep your plants low and if you have bigger things, they should be isolated uh a bit from the other things. So, what we’ve tried to do here is to keep uh some separation between the different um places where planting is. So, this area gets a bit of water, not a terribly huge amount because the natives are very good at storing it. And it also gets trimmed to keep them reasonably uh smaller sized. And also non-natives like this rosemary or the citrus are kept well hydrated to uh minimize their uh potential for supporting flame. In this area, uh, we have a mixture of Monardella veloa coyote mint with, um, some monkey flowers, a jelly bean hybrid monkey flowers mixed in, and some foothill pensan um, varieties. The great thing here is it’s amazing for uh, wildlife. Birds love the seeds, which is why I leave them on. Um, butterflies, moths, and bees love the flowers, and hummingbirds like the um, monkey flowers. Here we have a lemonade berry. It was started from a single little tiny cutting. Um, and this is a great plant for screening, for hedge. You can do anything with this you can do with your Texas privet or whatever, but it has much better wildlife value. It has nice flowers in the spring. Makes little um sort of sour berries. It can be trimmed and cut at any time of year into any shape you want. It has nice leathery leaves so they’re harder to burn and it’s a great screening plant for embers too. Okay, as we move to the back of the house, we’re still standing in zone zero, free of obstacles, very easy to travel through this area. It allows the residents to move easily and also if a firefighter needs to be in this space, they have a lot of room to work safely. The plants in zone one are low, um, well-maintained, and they have a good setback away from the home, so they’re not going to create or transfer a lot of radiant heat to the structure. These coastlive oaks are getting into zone two on the property, so a little farther away from the house, and it’s going to be the zone where you maintain it less really. I mean, it’s it’s more natural. Coastlive oaks are wonderful trees for fire resilience because they have these little tiny leathery leaves that are hard to catch on fire. Their trunks are very fire resistant. Their roots are super fireresistant so that even if they do burn, they come back. And because they are adapted to this environment, they really don’t need any water. This is obviously where we would do a lot of entertaining and eating outside when it’s nice. And uh this encompasses both a zero zone along the house here and then coming into zone one. This is zone where we’re most exposed to wind and probably fire. So we made it a little bit uh wider. The glass on the house was changed to tempered. We we use umbrellas which can be taken in when there’s uh red flag days or when there’s high winds uh or any fire danger. The other thing we have for a little summer shade is this Southern California black walnut. A very nice tree that provides a nice leafy canopy for shade and then it’s deciduous. So in the winter time you’ve got sun and also the animals love it. For a more wildfire resilient garden, let’s use that black walnut. Let’s use the coast live oak. Those are our trees. Let’s try that coyote brush, that lemonade berry. Those are our mediumsiz shrubs. And then lastly, our flowering perennials and annuals like the coyote mint, the pensammen, the California poppy. All of these are great to support habitat, create a strategic defense against embers. Practicing defensible space principles in the wildland urban interface, we can help protect our homes. [Music]