Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour

Recently my husband and I watched this must-see Fire Safety presentation by the Berkeley Fire Department: informative, compelling and motivating, it inspired us to make a number of changes around our house, and we will be doing more. I highly encourage you to watch it.

Fire-hazardous shrubs include: broom, fountain grass, juniper, pampas grass, rosemary.

Fire-hazardous trees include: acacia, bamboo, cedar, cypress, eucalyptus, pine, palm, and yew.

These fire-hazardous plants can be replaced with beautiful fire-resistant natives that will attract birds and butterflies to your garden. For more information on fire-resistant plants that you can use to replace the fire-hazardous plants in your garden, see:

Instead of This Fire-Hazardous Plant…Plant That

Here is a longer list of fire-resistant native plants: these plants were recommended by the fire-safe agencies listed above.

Fire Resistant Plants for Bayside Areas in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, California

Italian cypress burning in a residential area – catching the house on fire
Italian cypress is one of the most fire-hazardous vegetation species commonly found in landscaping vegetation. FIRESafe MARIN recommends the removal of Italian cypress whenever it is present within 100′ feet of structures in the Wildland Urban Interface

Burning juniper in front of homes – catching houses on fire (see the inset images on the right)
Wildfire embers are the leading cause of structure loss in wildfires. In this video from the FireSafe Marin website, watch as wind blown embers ignite ornamental vegetation – juniper bushes – hundreds of feet from the main fire, eventually destroying homes that were never impacted by the “main” fire.

This information on fire-hazardous plants & fire-resistant native plants was compiled using information taken from lists created by:

The Diablo Fire Safe Council
Fire Safe Marin
Fire Safe Council of Monterey
Western Fire Chiefs Association