My husband Tom and I were amazed with the mature stands of chaparral on a hike we took last week - the Mishe Mokwa trail in the Santa Monica Mountain National Recreation Area. I think the photos below illustrate how short-sighted the belief is that chaparral is meant to burn. For more on the …
Helping Ourselves through Conservation
I heard an amazing speaker last month here in Redlands CA - Peter Raven - a world leader in conservation who TIME Magazine has described as a "Hero for the Planet." Awarded the highest U.S. award for scientific accomplishment (Medal of Science), Raven is the long-time president of the Missouri …
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Wine Drinkers: Choose Corked Wine
During the last year I've read about the importance of cork trees and recently read another article on the topic in Living Bird magazine, which expressed concern that wine bottlers were replacing cork stoppers with plastic or screw caps. Main takeaway: The cork stopper in your wine bottle …
Tree Pruning: Resist Topping Trees
Here in southern California, and especially in our city of Redlands, which is bestowed with 100+ year old trees, we have an epidemic of terrible tree trimming. Also, tree topping or pollarding -- where main branches are trimmed to stubs -- seems to be rampant. Here are two good references on what …