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Learn how to 'firescape' and protect home from wildfire

El Dorado Hills fire station and master gardeners team for free public workshop

Red and white blossoms on salvia plant
Salvia, such as the popular "Hot Lips" variety, is a good choice for firescaping
as well as for drought resistance. Learn about firescaping during a free class
Saturday. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

When it comes to wildfire, your landscaping can help save your house or cabin.

Learn how during a special free public class hosted by gardening and fire experts – local master gardeners and firefighters.

This in-person presentation is a collaboration between the UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners of El Dorado County and the El Dorado Hills Fire Department, with a local fire station (No. 85) serving as classroom.

From 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, July 23, El Dorado County master gardener Kit Veerkamp will team with Tim White, also a master gardener and a member of the fire district’s board of directors. They’ll focus on home hardening – ways to make it tougher for fire to ever get a toehold near your house. The class also will cover current guidelines and recommendations about defensible space as well as what to plant in a fire-wise landscape.

“Fire Resiliency for El Dorado Hills” will particularly highlight the challenges faced by fire-prone Sierra foothills communities. That includes both firefighting and drought. A fire-wise garden can be water-wise, too.

A big difference between firescaping and low-water gardening: Plant choice. Such favorite low-water Mediterranean plants as rosemary burn easily due to the high oil or resin content in their leaves. Evergreen conifers such as pines also may not be fire-wise – even though they may be native. Low-water native grasses tend to burn rapidly.

Among the plants recommended for firescaping: Daylily, butterfly bush, lavender, salvia, coreopsis and ceanothus.

No advance registration is necessary for Saturday’s class. El Dorado Hills Fire Station No. 85 is located at 1050 Wilson Blvd., El Dorado Hills.

For more information, email
mgeldorado@ucanr.edu or call 530-621-5512.

Details: https://mgeldorado.ucanr.edu/


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Garden Checklist for week of Feb. 9

Be careful walking or working in wet soil; it compacts easily.

* Keep the irrigation turned off; the ground is plenty wet with more rain on the way.

* February serves as a wake-up call to gardeners. This month, you can transplant or direct-seed several flowers, including snapdragon, candytuft, lilies, astilbe, larkspur, Shasta and painted daisies, stocks, bleeding heart and coral bells.

* In the vegetable garden, plant Jerusalem artichoke tubers, and strawberry and rhubarb roots.

* Transplant cabbage and its close cousins – broccoli, kale and cauliflower – as well as lettuce (both loose leaf and head).

* Indoors, start peppers, tomatoes and eggplant from seed.

* Plant artichokes, asparagus and horseradish from root divisions.

* Plant potatoes from tubers and onions from sets (small bulbs). The onions will sprout quickly and can be used as green onions in March.

* From seed, plant beets, chard, lettuce, mustard, peas, radishes and turnips.

* Annuals are showing up in nurseries, but wait until the weather warms up a bit before planting. Instead, set out flowering perennials such as columbine and delphinium.

* Plant summer-flowering bulbs including cannas, calla lilies and gladiolus.

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