Save the Chaparral!

Over 1600 fires are started each year by people cutting grass, weeds, and "brush".  It's important to have that defensible space around your home, but please use your brains before doing the work.  We do get rain here in San Diego county during the winter months.  That is when you should be doing your outdoor trimming work.  It's not worth a fire just to have your landscaping look perfect all summer.  If you would plant drought-tolerant plants it won't grow during the summer, anyway.  So trim it in the winter and then leave it alone once things dry out.

Better yet, use hand tools.  How many people use power tools for their yard work and then go to the gym to "exercise"?  What a farce!  My wife uses hand clippers, a big pair of loppers, and a small pruning saw to trim the deadwood from plants within 100 feet of our house.  They are so quiet that she can hear and enjoy the birds around her as she works.

Read the full story in the LA Times.  It's too bad the Union Tribune isn't so enlightened, but at least we have The Voice of San Diego. 

--Brian