Re: Fire retardant plants

Greetings from Santa Cruz, Isabel.

In addition to these addresses:
http://frap.cdf.ca.gov/
and
http://www.laspilitas.com/fire.htm
here are a few tidbits from other websites:

Hope this is of some use to you.
Good luck,
Nancy

________________
Fire Retardant Checklist:

    * Plant low fire fuel plant materials, particularly within the 30 foot
"critical zone."
    * Keep trees and shrubs away from structures.
    * Prune all plant materials of dead wood and excess stems and branches.
    * Apply just the right amount of water to keep plants healthy. Too much
water will promote excess plant growth which means more potential fire
fuel; too little will lower the plants moisture content causing them to
burn more readily.

Fire Retardant Plant List:

Grass Species: With irrigation, turfgrasses are fire resistant.

Groundcover: Achillea spp. (Yarrow),Baccharis (Coyote Bush), Ceonothus
griseus horizontalis (Carmel Creeper), Heliamthemum (Sunrose), Oenothera
(Mexican primrose), Santolina virins (Lavender Cotton), Sedum species
(Stonecrop)

Shrubs: Ceanothus spp. (California Lilac), Cistus Spp. (Rockrose),
Heteromeles (Toyon), Lavendula spp. (Lavender), Rhanus spp. (Buckthorn),
Rhus ovata (Sugar Bush)

Trees: Arbutus unedo (Strawberry Tree), Gleditsia triacanthus (Honey
Locust), Parkinsonia spp. (Palo Verde), Umbellularia Californica (Laurel),
Washingtonia filifera (California Fan Palm), - if dead fronds are removed.
_____________________
 Smith suggested the following plants for landscaping near homes in
forested areas:

Shrubs - New Mexico olive, threeleaf sumac, littleleaf sumac, silver
buffaloberry, shrubby cinquefoil, mock orange, chokecherry, mountain
mahogany, fendlerbush, native roses, black sage.

Vines - grapes, western woodbine, Boston ivy; trees - bigtooth maple,
narrowleaf cottonwood, hackberry, Russian olive, box elder.

Flowers - winterfat, Rocky Mountain iris, iceplant, Rocky Mountain zinnia,
Rocky Mountain penstemon, four o'clocks.
_____________________
Several plants have desirable attributes of fire retardance, low
maintenance requirements, availability and range of successful plantings.
These include white trailing iceplant (Delosperma alba), dwarf aloe (Aloe
aristata), shortleaf aloe (Aloe brevifolia), croceum iceplant (Malephora
crocea), crocea (Malephora crocea var purpureo) , creeping Australian
saltbush (Atriplex semibaccata), Lippia (Lippia canescens var repens), and
quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides). At least as many others are equally
effective but only in limited climatic zones. Two others show a good deal
of promise in test plantings but are not yet available on the commercial
market: creeping sage (Salvia sonomensis), and Castlevalley saltbush
(Atriplex cuneata). A decorative plant to be avoided is any species of
juniper, even the prostrate variety, as all species contain a high volatile
oil content and are unusually flammable (Alger 1971, Los Angeles County
1973, Green 1977, Nerd and Countryman 1972).
______________________________
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