A Quick Overview of Fire-smart Landscaping

There’s been a lot of concern about how to deal with gardens and landscapes in Marin in an increasingly long and intense California fire season.  UCCE Marin Master Gardeners believe that healthy gardens are an important component of a healthy and biodiverse ecology--and of a less fire prone home environment. We have developed fire-smart principles to help reduce landscape fire risk without serious reduction or elimination of garden and landscape plantings. Following these principles can help you deal with fire risk while maintaining a healthy and beautiful landscape.  This presentation will describe Fire-smart principles and tips to reduce fire hazard risk in your landscape while preserving its ecological and esthetic value. 

Before becoming a Marin Master Gardener in 2014, Bob Mauceli was a Master Gardener for nine years in Upstate New York. He lives on a north Novato hillside that has twenty-one Tuscan olive trees and is landscaped using native trees, shrubs, ground covers and perennials. Bob is one of the original members of the Marin Master Gardener Fire-smart Project Team. He has been working for the past two years on applying Fire-smart principles to his native plant garden to reduce its fire hazard risk.