 My name is Bob Schneider. I work with the Sonoma Ecology Center and we're a partner in the Resilient Landscapes Coalition, or RLC. So RLC with funding from Sonoma County provides education in defensible space landscaping to residents, landscape professionals, and defensible space inspectors. This presentation is for folks that are just interested in defensible space landscaping, while also making your landscape beautiful, sustainable, biodiverse. You can have both. So that's kind of our whole mission here. So who is the Resilient Landscapes Coalition? We are a partnership between multiple organizations. You can see here Firesafe Sonoma. Maybe some of you were here for Roberta McIntyre's talk in the morning on home hardening. So Firesafe Sonoma is with us, Habitat Corridor Projects, which does landscape design with native plants. Sonoma Ecology Center, which is represented by yours truly, Ellie Inslee, who is a founding member not here today. And the UC Master Gardener Program of Sonoma County, Mimi Enright was here at our table earlier. So we've got subject matter experts in a lot of different sides of landscaping and defensible space. We formed as a coalition in 2017, you know, all the catastrophic fires and have worked really closely with fire professionals and fire advisors to develop our recommendations for landscaping from the current research. And again, working really closely with the folks actually out in the field fighting fires. So in essence, right, the Resilient Landscape Coalition's mission is to create defensible space landscaping that reduces the risk of fire near structures, right? Well, also addressing the ecological needs of wildlife and the larger ecosystem that we all live in. And so it's like as we're making changes to our landscapes, we can have multiple goals simultaneously. Here's a picture of some hookra or coral bells. It's a lovely, really low-growing or gracious perennial. Nice pink flowers, really fun at the base of an oak tree. And we'll talk about like plant selection, plant choice in more detail as I go through here. But this is a good example of like a beautiful native plant that provides pollen and nectar for birds and foraging and nesting sites under the base of those leaves as well. It's spaced nice and far away from the trunk of that oak tree and also vertically spaced nice and far away from the lowest branches. So again, we'll talk about all those like plant details as well, but just, I wanna start with beauty. That's kind of a core value for us. So today we're gonna talk about defensible space and how ecology and sustainability fit into that, right? We'll talk about design and maintenance principles, planting and maintenance examples as well, provide a lot of pictures as we go. Also addressing some misconceptions about how to make landscapes fire-wise. A lot of folks ask for like fire-safe plants. I'll talk about that a little bit. Yeah. So I'll start with ecology. Let's just, you know, with the context, right? The landscape directly outside your home has a real potential to provide many valuable functions to the ecosystem, whether it's providing habitat for wildlife, sequestering carbon in trees, reducing erosion when rain falls or water moves through the environment. There's a lot of really important functions that just your landscaping can provide. That said, let me go, next one. That said, you know, we are in a somewhat of a crisis ecologically, right? You can see here some numbers between 1982 and 2001, 34 million acres of wildland were lost to development in the US because of the built environment. That's neighborhoods, that's commercial sites. So you could look at this and say, oh man, that's a huge bummer and it is, but the built environment also has a real potential for addressing this exact problem. And that starts with sustainable practices. We'll talk in more details, but things like the use of plants native to our region, good water conservation practices, integrated pest management, reducing pesticide use. Yeah, and one, I mentioned native plants, plants native to our region. Every region has its own set of native plants that have co-evolved with that specific area for millions and millions of years, all the insects, wildlife have built up relationships with these plants. So one example is oak trees, you can see here at the top, right? And here's a nice caterpillar eating a leaf. So oak trees are in our region are a keystone, meaning they're extremely important in the whole ecosystem, over 5,000 different invertebrates. So that's insects, depend on a single oak tree. Just going to butterflies and moths, right? We all love butterflies, I certainly do. A single valley oak, a common oak in our region, well Laguna de Santa Rosa has them, can support up to 150 different species of butterflies and moths. That's compared, you know, relative to, you know, some fairly common landscaping plant, very often only support maybe two to three different species. So that's orders of magnitude difference. That's a native plant and its ability to provide a service in the environment. Oh, and one more thing, just since I'm nerdin' out with you all, see that gorgeous little chickadee in the top eating that caterpillar? Songbirds when they're feeding their young depend almost entirely on caterpillars. So if we want songbirds, we need to have caterpillars and so we need native plants. So now I'll get into some defensible space background and this is a rough outline. You know, there's, we'll talk in more detail. You can come check in with us at the table. We have a website I'll share as well, but there's a lot of information to cram in here. So as some of you probably already know, fire can cause a structure to burn in a number of ways. That can be wind driven embers, can be radiant heat or direct flame contact. Embers from wildland fires can enter a house through many different routes, but, you know, exterior vegetation into the house is one way it can even be a house to exterior vegetation. So all that's to say, I'm not here to talk about home hardening. I'm gonna get into the landscape, but home hardening is the first place to start. That's definitely something that we make sure to drive home. Roberta again was talking about that earlier today. She's out at the table there if you wanna chat about that. So starting with practices like double pane windows, stucco or cement board siding, eighth inch mesh around your vents. Those are all number one priority. But as we get on the landscape, right? We can see that there's been these different, three different zones have been created in fire science when it comes to creating defensible space around a structure, right? So we have the zone zero, which is zero to five feet out from a structure. We've got zone one, five to 30 feet out. We can see here, I'm gonna use my laser pointer, so I don't have to get into that. Right there, that's the zone one, five to 30 feet out. And then you can see zone two, 30 to 100 feet out. So each one of these has their own recommendations that I'll describe in a minute. One thing to point out with this graphic, not all graphics are perfect, and I didn't have a better one on hand, but this garage right here, that's a structure. So technically this should have its own zoning coming out from that structure as well. Every time there's a structure, we restart the zone process. So it should be kind of look like two concentric rings merging into each other. All right, so let's get into zone zero a little bit. This is sometimes called the Ember resistant zone. This is the area that after home hardening is the most important protection you have from fire igniting a structure. This zero to five feet area, the objective is to avoid ignitions from windblown embers landing on or near the direct surroundings of the house. Ember ignitions are responsible in a large majority of structure fires, at least that seems to be a trend in a lot of fire science. So in this zone, all home building materials, vegetation, equipment, outdoor furniture, really anything combustible should be removed. So that's often, I'll get into some pictures, but let's just start with a positive, right? So here's a really beautiful example of a zone zero style landscape, right? We could see hardscape that's five feet up from the house. It's like custom done, it's mortared in cobble with a nice paver walkway through. So this is gonna prevent, if an Ember lands in this space, right? There's nothing combustible for it to ignite. And that is the goal of this space. There are some nuances with zone zero. It's not like a hard and fast ruled, nothing, no plants, no nothing. I'll get into that in a moment. And the science continues to change. Let's see if I had anything else. Isn't that pretty, right? Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of creative ways to play with this. The landscaping practices I'm describing really challenge a lot of convention. We're used to a lawn up to a foundation planting and nice shrubs up against the house. Unfortunately that no longer is very useful in an age where we have such catastrophic wildfires. One thing to say actually also with the zone zero is if we have existing trees, like I wouldn't go in and say, recommend you plant a tree in this area. But a lot of folks have trees fairly close to the home. So the goal with that is, or what I would advise is to make sure that the lowest limbs, any branches coming off of that tree are at least five feet up from the roof. And if there's a chimney, 10 feet, further 10 feet. All these details are on our website. So yeah, that's a resource for you. Here's some examples of zone zero that are I think really lovely. So in this left picture, we can see like a crushed gravel probably a three eighths crushed gravel pathway, really lovely wrapping around the house. Kind of a naturalistic look, not pavers or concrete going into zone one, which I'll get into later. Now, one thing to point out again, not everything's perfect. I like this image, but what I don't like, you see this mesh under the deck, that should be eighth inch mesh because embers can move right through that hog panel. So that's any decks, any exterior like openings into a structure should be plugged up really well. That's a big part of home hardening. Here's an example in the center of kind of the exceptions to zone zero. Let's say you live in a lower hazard severity zone, right? Cal Fire and the County have created hazard severity maps. So you can find those online and they're also on our website, they're linked out. So if you live in one of those zones, right? And you've put in the work, you've got double pane windows, you've done all this great home hardening and you really want some kind of more, some vegetation in zone zero using very well irrigated, very low growing vegetation you see here, but between the pavers, that can be acceptable. And the regulations on this are changing. Cal Fire is working on more concrete directives for this particular zone that's upcoming. But for now, you know, stuff like this, again, on the nuanced side, it can be acceptable. As of now, compost is acceptable in zone zero as well, not a wood mulch, I'll get into mulches as well. Then in that last picture is just a nice two or three foot layer, probably I would expand that if I couldn't, this larger shrub isn't maybe ideal. But I will at the end, yeah, it's listed out, of course. All right, so now into zone one. So remember we've got that defensible space map, zone one is five to 30 feet out from the house. Zone one should be designed to create a landscape that if firefighters come in, this is where they're defending a house from. So that's a big element in how you design, how you set up this part of your landscape. And it's also if embers land and ignite in this area because we have more vegetation and some mulch, we want to set it up so that they're not transmitting toward the home. And I can talk about some strategies for that. Yeah, mostly, yeah, yeah. So how we approach zone one is planting in islands. Yeah, this picture is a good example. So this on the right is a nice example of an island with low growing like three foot at maturity height plants that are clustered together. Because when you just have a single plant, it's not that great for habitat, for nesting songbirds, other wildlife. But when you have a few plants clumped together, they're providing a really great ecological service. And we can break that up with hardscape or non-combustible materials in between the planting islands. So this area, this planted area is actually mulched with arbor mulch. I'll get into the virtues of different mulch materials, but this is mulched and irrigated. It's maintained really intentionally. And then this hardscape element breaks up these islands so that breaks the continuity of fuel between planting areas. Down here is a nice example of actually a native sedge of very grass-like plant. Grows near creeks often, sometimes near the coast. This particular species makes a great like wavy lawn alternative. So if hardscape is not quite your thing, there are some very fleshy plants if very intentionally maintained and kept free of like combustible material, make a good break between planting areas as well. That one's sedge. Yeah, S-E-D-G-E. It's a native sedge. K-R-E-X-C-A-R-E-X is what you'll find and buy. Yeah. Let's see if I'm missing anything. Yeah. So here's some other examples. I love these plants. These red flowerings are California fuchsia. Really, really great late season flower. They're blooming. They're just starting to get going right now and they'll go into October. Hummingbirds are huge fans of these. And you can see then it's like a fairly dense planting here in an island and then boom, we got a hardscape path with a stone retaining wall. So it's that same principle of planting, breaking it up, then more planting. On the left is zone zero and then up into a, this is a native grass lawn called bentgrass. Much less thirsty requires a lot less water than traditional lawns. Yeah, that's this one here. So all of this just lawn looking area is bentgrass, B-E. And yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Some more examples. This purple plant is a native sage, probably Cleveland sage. And then this is the first one we've seen of this where you can break up islands with also like dry creek beds or swales sort of seasonal water features that maybe fill up with some rain when it comes into the landscape. But throughout the year are noncombustible. So it's another element that aesthetically it can fit into a landscape without making it feel all broken up and fragmented but functionally divides up combustible areas. Just some more beautiful examples. Yeah, okay. And so then into zone two, not everyone has zone two. I know that sometimes lot sizes don't even create like an opportunity for 30 to 100 feet but there also are a lot of landowners in the county that have acreage. So it's really worth speaking to this as well. Yeah, so I'll talk about there's this note horizontal and vertical spacing. I'll get into some more specifics on that. That's a really important part of defensible space landscaping. But in this area, so we're 30 feet out from the house right now, 30 to 100 feet is zone two. And in this area, we can't have denser, more large woody kind of plantings. Think small trees, larger eight to 10 foot shrubs but we're still following these principles of spacing. So not having just like giant clusters of material. And as far as maintenance goes I'll again get into more detail but we don't wanna let dead woody material build up. We don't want leaf litter to build up too thick at the base of plants in this zone. And yeah, I think that's, those are some of the core elements of it. Yeah, yeah, we don't want it. So sometimes, especially on really droughty years stuff doesn't decompose and it can get like eight to 12 inches. Leaf litter is actually a really wonderful mulch. And once you get this far out, having even using arbor mulch in between plantings and letting leaf litter to there to decompose is great. We don't want it right up against the trunk of plants because then that creates this like continuity right to the tree. Also that a lot of trees don't like moisture right at the crown. But it's about just not letting it get too out of control. We don't want a ton of combustible material to build up. Yeah. Inches, inches, yeah. It's okay. Yeah, and it's one other thing to say on this, on zone two, this is kind of like, if anybody knows about shaded fuel breaks and more like wildland management, shaded fuel breaks are like areas often on ridges where fire defense teams will come in to reduce the density of vegetation. It's not about removing clear-cutting everything because trees provide a lot of good benefits. We like trees, but it's about reducing the density. So we're breaking the continuity of fire while keeping the continuity of habitat. That's the goal of zone two ecologically. Is arbor mulch a specific type or is that just need any kind of tree? I'll talk about that. Yeah, it is a somewhat of a specific type. Yeah. Here's some examples. These look like they're in zone one setting. These are just further out from the house, but you can see that they're kind of lusher. They don't look as broken up by pathways and such. Now there still are paths that are coming through these areas, but they might be arbor mulch instead of a hardscape. So we still don't just have like a giant wall of vegetation, but we're breaking up our islands with less of a focus on non-combustible materials. Okay, now we're gonna talk about spacing a little bit because this isn't a really important part. So when you're designing and also when you're maintaining your landscape, I like this second graphic here because this one looks like it's just individual plants. Spacing kind of applies to these islands, these clusters of planting. So if I have a cluster and I'm on less than a 20% slope, it's good to have at least twice the width between the next island, right? So we wanna break that down really easily. Pathways should be at least three to four feet in zone one because we want, and then the more slope goes up, the more spacing we want because as fire tends to move uphill and preheats material as it moves up, so you want as if you have a really steep slope, you gotta increase the spacing between plantings. Something to think about. You know what, actually one more thing to say on this, so you can have what to put in between these in these spaced areas, right? Similar stuff to things I've already said, hardscape. Some people down in Southern California, they've been really using retaining walls like non-combustible retaining walls on steeper slopes between plantings and that can stop or reduce fire movement. Driveways, pathways, rock features, even that irrigated, well-irrigated native grasses, all good options. And now vertical spacing, this is like the fuel ladder from the ground up into the canopy of a tree, right? So we can see here, over to the right, not good, we don't want this. Underneath this tree is larger shrubs that are connecting to the lower canopy of this tree, right? So if embers come in, ignite these shrubs, there's continuity up into this tree to move that fire, we don't want that. So with vertical spacing, the goal is to allow, at least at a minimum three times the height of a plant that's growing under a tree, right? So if I had a two-foot shrub, I want at least six feet between that, the top of that shrub in the first branch in a tree. And another kind of rule of thumb to follow is you want to limb up your trees at least six feet from the ground, or if it's a larger tree, a third, a third the height of the tree. Yeah, please. How do you do it? Yeah, depends where they are. It depends on a lot of factors, like where they are in the landscape. Maybe let's hold and we'll get to questions. I'll finish this up. Yeah, yeah. So here's a good example of a problem and solving the problem, right? And this is actually involving the much maligned Juniper hedge shrub and everybody loves to hate for good reason. Fairly combustible, it tends to build up a lot of dead woody material on the interior. One of the main reasons that Juniper is such a problem, certainly I wouldn't want this around the house, but this is zone two, this is 30 to 100 feet out. So this Juniper, again, I probably wouldn't keep it long-term, I'm not a huge fan of them, but it is serving somewhat of a purpose to providing habitat for nesting birds, reptiles and such. But it was like surrounding the base of the trunk of this tree, right? So that's again, that's creating continuity up into the canopy. So what happened was cut away from the tree three times the spacing horizontally, I'm sorry, twice the spacing horizontally, three times vertically. And this Juniper is still there. Again, it's not like an evil plant, it's just about how you maintain it and where it's placed. Here's some examples of just the materials I've been talking about. So between the island, so between the island,