I don't envy you. We, too, have roses much closer than 10-ft.

To be honest, with the world's larges pine tree just into a neighbors property on one side, and some old unidentifiable windrow trees 5-ft from out house, but belong to another neighbor, I think we've got worse things to worry about than Secret Garden Musk Climber . . .

Of course we have to take fire safety seriously. We have seen what can happen.

Tom and I are in the Wild-Urban Interface area, and we just spent a fortune making our property more fire resistant. We followed the suggestions of our fire insurance company and also the suggestions from an excellent landscape fire safety lecture I attended.

We removed all trees that were close to the house except for four 80-year-old redwoods, which we limbed up about 20 feet. I like the way they look now very much. In the fire prevention lecture we were told that redwoods are more fire resistant than other kinds of conifers. Oak trees are also similarly resistant. Junipers are nicknamed "green gasoline", so I took out the cute little 'Pencil Point' juniper I had planted, along with the young Italian cypress 'Tiny Towers' that I quite liked. We also took out all the young conifers I had planted outside the fence over the past few years, though mature conifers we inherited that are distant from the house remain. I'm not sure the city would let us take them out even if we wanted to, as they tend to hang on tightly to any mature tree. I planted lots of oaks as well as conifers and the oaks are all still there. Then we removed all wood chip mulch within 10 feet of the house (it is terribly flammable) and replaced it with a stone mulch over wire hardware cloth. That wire was to keep the dogs from digging it up, plus I despise landscape cloth, which the gophers would have destroyed in minutes.

Planting beds 10 feet and further from the house keep their wood chip mulch, but I won't renew it as it decomposes. With the rain we're getting this year it ought to decompose quickly. I'll just top off those areas each spring with compost. We do still have wood chip mulch on unplanted slopes further away from the house than that, and fallen pine needles as well. I'm working to figure out a non-flammable, drought tolerant, gopher resistant ground cover for those slopes. My best idea yet is mown yarrow. I wonder if it can get by with a once-a-month watering. Does anyone know?

Most of our climbing roses are growing on various fences, not on the house. The four that are near the house are not directly touching it, but on copper pipe trellises that are 12-18 inches away from the walls. I did that for termite resistance, but it is good for fire resistance as well, and also makes it easier to prune them. If our fire marshal tells me to take the four roses close to the house down, well, then I will.

We keep the weed-grass mixture comes up in the ungardened areas short. It's simply not possible to have a grass lawn here due to the gophers. As for ornamental grasses, I don't like them at all so they are not an issue for me.

I face a similar problem since I planted junipers close to our house, and a smaller house on our property has a row of tall, older cypresses hugging one side of it. The only reason I'm not more worried is that we have a large orange grove on that side abutting our property and a vineyard across the street, which somewhat decreases the fire danger, and we have large areas of weeded open land and huge boulders on our property which hopefully will keep a fire from encroaching. We also have quite a few gallons of fire retardant that we would spray on flammable areas near the houses and on the houses, and we will definitely be staying on our property to fight the flames, which is something all our neighbors have done successfully throughout several large fires here. Nothing is ever perfect, but we've tried to stay prepared. Taking out the cypresses would be a huge expense, so to some extent we are keeping our fingers crossed. I'm glad now that we never sought to plant our whole property, keeping the plantings fairly close to the house, so that the fire would not have much to feed on before it reaches us.

I do not envy you on this task. Annie's has a list of fire resistant plants if that is any help fire resistant plants. No, I don't work for them but have bought some beauties from them that have done well in my yard. Sorry you don't care for ornamental grasses. Pink Muhly grass is one of my favorites.

mustbnuts, thank you for that list. It allowed me to add some more plants to my wish list that are both fire-resistant and bunny-unfriendly. I need all the help I can get because I'm looking for perennials that don't need much water, tolerate my soil and don't need to be surrounded by a bunny barrier, and now that are also fire-resistant. The various forms of mimulus have so far been untouched, as has cistus, some penstemons, salvias and lavenders, but I think if they are hungry enough they might eat anything and everything.

Glad I could help. I have been slowly going through the catalog myself, not only for under plantings in my yard but my sister wishes me to redesign her front and back yards. She lives near the mountains in the Pasadena/Sierra Madre area and so since she doesn't want to water much and has critters in her yard as well, I am trying to find plants that will give her that "English Garden" look that she craves. Oh, and she also doesn't want to take care of the plants either, so they need to be no care types of plants. As the great philosopher of the 20th century stated (Mick Jagger), "You can't always get what you want." However, I am trying! So I am learning a lot in the process and have several plants saved to my wish list for use in her yard.

As part of that process, I also learned about a garden tour (in the LA/Pasadena area) and a nursery in the Sunland area that specializes in drought tolerant, native plants. I have been gone from So Cal for so long now that I didn't know they existed. They have some interesting videos and classes that I will try to send her to (I know she won't go). Ah, as some other great philosopher stated, "Hope springs eternal!" Theodore Payne Foundation/Nursery I have never been to them nor gotten any plants from them, nor do I work for them, but their videos and site are interesting. They have several videos on Youtube.

It's quite a challenge to find plants that fit all the criteria that your sister and I desire, and trial and error are very much a part of the process. I have noticed that cistus 'Victor Reiter' is untouched so far, and its leaves do not look yummy. It's made no effort to bloom yet, though, and quite possibly the bunnies might like the blooms. Thank you for the link to the videos; no doubt they have info I need to know.

Check out Shelley Jennings at World Wide Exotics Nursery in Lake View Terrace, too. Shelley and Ken were neighbors, friends and business associates of the late Gary Hammer who brought in SO many of the plants we now take for granted through his Desert to Jungle and World Wide Exotics nurseries. The Jennings have many of his plants and offer them, as well as design and installation service through World Wide Exotics. Call to make sure they're there as Saturdays are their usual open to the public days. If you go, please feel free to tell them "Hi" for me. Kim

Kim, great resource that I bookmarked. Thanks!

You're welcome! They're really neat people with some gorgeous plants. Gary Hammer was responsible for bringing "Sticks of Fire" Euphorbia into the US market, among MANY other plants. He set up John Greenlee, the 'Grass Man'. Shelley's prices are rather remarkable, too. A Santa Barbara nursery has this marvelous bromeliad I HAD to have, but found their prices a bit too "unfriendly". Shelley has it in gallon cans for less than a third of the four inch pot price of the SB nursery!

Yup! One came home with me! I make the pilgrimage to World Wide every Saturday we have to be in the LA area.

If we ever get to go nursery shopping, they are not too far from Theodore Payne and will have to stop by! Beautiful plants!

I have a question regarding the original point I was trying to make in this thread - do any of you live where you are under planting/water restrictions or regulations for BOTH fire resistance AND drought tolerance by local officials? My county and city are frequently way ahead of the curve in thinking of new and more wonderful govt. regulations, so perhaps this conundrum of getting COMPLETELY CONTRADICTORY suggestions/requirements has not spread widely yet. Just wondering...

Jackie

Hey, Kim, is that Deuterochonia brevifolia? I got one of those a few years ago at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden (they have extremely reasonable prices), after seeing an old plant of it there, of course. Not hard to grow (I keep mine dry in winter), but not fast -- steady as it goes. Love the bright green flowers and its texture and sculptural character.

No such regulations here in Livermore, either for fire resistance or drought tolerance, but the city did offer incentives for people to convert at least part of their lawns to water-thrifty landscape during the last drought, and people are doing that on their own after the last water rate hikes, anyway. As we are only surrounded by semi-arid grassland, for miles, not woodland, forest, or chaparral, I don't think our city would contemplate regulations like that.

catspat - you are probably correct. Marin County has very similar conditions to Napa and Sonoma - wooded hills surrounding old communities of close packed houses. I think the last serious wildland/interface with communities huge fire here was in the 1920s, so we are way overdue, and of course the population has exploded in the meantime.

The conversation re fire safety vs water saving is confusing, to say the least. Today's IJ (our local countywide paper) had a huge spread about how to grow some sort of huge ornamental grass, and let it turn brown in the Fall, and leave it that way until Spring, so the birds could eat the seeds. I am thinking of sending that article to the Fire Chief!

Jackie

Yes, Catspa, that's what it is, but Worldwide sells it under the ABROMEITIELLA BREVIFOLIA. They also sell the larger ABROMEITIELLA LORENTZIANA . Both make tremendous ground covers as grown by Aloes in Wonderland in Santa Barbara.

No contradictory regulations in our area, thank goodness. It's rather laid back out here in the country, although we've had fires sweep through here more than once. They do have vehicles driving by that check properties for potential fire hazards, and they check for tree branches impinging on electrical lines which they then cut down free of charge and take away, which is a pretty neat thing.