Fireproofing garden in Sicily
- Subject: Fireproofing garden in Sicily
- From: D* W*
- Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 19:42:31 -0800
My brother-in-law is buying hillside property in Sicily. There are
fruit trees and pines on the property already. He will be there only
part of the year, so needs to plant self-reliant plants. He also
needs to plant to reduce the likelihood of fire. The neighbours
regularly plow a firestrip on the lower part of their properties. (He
thinks this may be required by law.) Shepherds deliberately set fires
to encourage new growth for their sheep, so he will need to keep the
bushes along the road well-pruned so they won't be able to fire them.
He would prefer to grow native plants, but many of them, like
lavender, burn very well. He is hoping to find a list of
Mediterranean plants that don't burn easily. He would also like to
have some of these be ones that can hold a steep bank against erosion.
I have found many websites with instructions for fireproofing a
property in British Columbia, California, Utah, South Africa,
Tasmania .... but not anywhere in the Mediterranean region itself.
The principles, of removing dead branches, spacing trees so the fire
can't travel through a canopy, and so on, are similar everywhere, but
there are likely to be some details specific to coastal Italy.
Diane Whitehead
