Photo: Laura Velkei

Downtown L.A. Goes from Gray to Green

What’s better than a tree planting to beautify downtown L.A.? Many tree plantings to beautify downtown L.A.!

TreePeople Citizen Forester Gabrielle Newmark rallied her downtown Los Angeles Arts District community to plant 27 trees—including well-adapted Australian willows and pink trumpet trees—on April 27. Enthusiastic volunteers named each tree so that now Hector, Blossom, Roscoe, Ilean, Bob Barker, and the rest are happily installed and on their way to shading the city streets.

Gabrielle knew she was following the lead of some pioneering greening efforts that had begun making a difference in this gray and gritty part of town.… Read more >>

Photo: Laura Velkei

Free Workshops on Landscape Transformation, this Saturday, May 4

Got plans for Saturday morning? If not, then come up to TreePeople and attend one of our free quarterly workshops on how to transform your home and neighborhood landscapes. You’ll learn everything you ever wanted to know about rain water harvesting, replacing a lawn with native plants, or planting trees—but were afraid to ask. Learn how you can make big sustainable changes at your home, and in our city, with simple DIY projects.

Read more about the May 4 workshops in the Los Angeles Times‘ Weekend Radar!… Read more >>

GroundOps_VetLettuce

From the Battlefield to Farm Fields

America needs one million new farmers; returning war veterans need jobs.

Enter Ground Operations, the new documentary that follows vets who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan only to face a daunting transition back to civilian life. As filmmakers Dulanie Ellis and Raymond Singer show, organic food production is creating a restorative road home. Working with soil, plants, and animals, veterans de-escalate from the high velocity of combat in a revitalizing natural setting. “I realized I could be a nurturer instead of a destroyer, and that was a significant realization for me,” says a Marine.… Read more >>

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Learn How to Get Your Landscape Really Green

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 be captured for local use or returned to the ground for irrigation, we’re failing to clean it up before it enters our waterways.

But did you know that even in times of drought, what little moisture falls from the sky can be harvested and put to use?… Read more >>

Valerie Fontaine sheet mulching project 12-14-2012

Sheet Mulching 101 (part 2 of 2)

Want 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 FAQs:

Is it really as simple as it sounds? Just put down cardboard or newspaper, dump mulch, keep moist, and wait? Is that it?
Yes.… Read more >>