Cynthia: This is something completely new to me, and I'm super excited about it as I've been doing my research.

Have you heard of firewise landscaping?

Did you know that you can plant a firewise garden, and that will help resist the fire and also keep your property more safe?

I am here with the amazing Natalie McHale, who is with the Summit Community Gardens.

And she's gonna talk to us all about keeping your landscape firewise.

And we really want to hear your comments.

So make sure you ask us some questions below so we can ask Natalie here to give us some awesome feedback and what more we can learn about firewise gardens.

Thank you so much for letting us come check out this awesome space and all the cool things that you guys have done here to show the community what you can do with a firewise garden.

Natalie: Yeah, so we are standing in our perennial garden, and it's our firewise garden specifically.

So it's here to showcase to our community.

People can come in, take a look, and see what we recommend growing to keep your house safe from fires.

Cynthia: I was really shocked by the list and the variety that you can actually use that are fire-retardant plants.

And there are a lot of options.

Natalie: So the main qualities of these plants are they usually have soaps or oils that are less flammable.

They're drought tolerant, so meaning they carry a lot of water in their stems and leaves.

And the rocks are another example that we use in our firewise gardens.

It's better than wood chips that would help spread fire.

And also just the spacing.

They're not spaced close together.

You'll often hear the term as a ladder, where a short plant is planted near a tall plant, and that allows the fire to grow up a tall tree.

So they're spaced evenly and very low-growing to just reduce the chance of fire spreading.

Cynthia: Okay, so there was a lot in there that I wanna unpack.

I wanna unpack all this.

I can see that it's like evenly spaced.

My type of gardening is like shove it in there, make it overflow, don't see the ground.

But that is not a great idea for firewise.

So you were talking about laddering and not having that ability for the fire to spread.

So can you tell me just a little bit more about that?

Natalie: Yeah, so you can still plant your favorite things like trees, broadleaf trees instead of conifers.

They're obviously better.

But if you still wanted that pine tree in your yard, just space them.

Don't put a bunch together where they're going to continue to spread.

Keep them far away, and keep anything below growing beneath it short.

If there's a really hot fire, everything will burn.

But the goal is that they will not spread the burn.

Cynthia: I want you to tell me about this demo garden you have here.

What do we have that is keeping this landscape firewise?

Tell me about what do we have here.

Natalie: So if you've heard of soapwort before, the name, it's because it's historically been used to create a mild detergent to clean items.

But again, having soap within its leaves and flowers helps suppress wildflowers, if they do.

Again when it's extremely hot, they will burn, but it will prevent it from going from this plant to the next plant.

- Oh, so beautiful.

Does it just keep blooming?

- Yes, yes.

This one does pretty well throughout the year, unless it gets really hot, it'll stop dropping its petals.

But luckily, we just run drip irrigation a little bit, and it keeps it happy.

- And it keeps it happy.

- Oh, I'm gonna need to add that one to my yard.

- We have a variety of sage that's a little more low-growing than some you may see.

So you still get the beautiful smell of sage in your garden.

- That's what we want, Right?

- Okay.

I love this one.

Tell me what it is.

- This is snow-in-summer.

And not only beautiful, but it stays nice and low to the ground, keeping it safe to plant in your garden.

We see it blooming in the middle of the summer, even when it's hot, which lets us know there's a high water content to help suppress fires.

- And it also spreads, right?

Like it's a good one if you need to like fill in an area and you want some summer flowers.

- Exactly.

We have a variety of ice plants in our garden, very similar to succulents you'd see in your home.

They love sunlight but are very drought tolerant.

And again, as you see, they stay nice and low to the ground and spread to fill your firewise garden landscape.

- [Cynthia] Oh, and we got some bees loving it too.

- [Natalie] And the bees Love them.

Yes.

Which can only help.

- Help our little pollinator friends.

- Exactly.

- Okay, tell me about this beautifully shaped plant.

- So these are one of my favorites because of the shape, and they just look luscious.

And even just, you can feel the water moisture.

- Yes, for sure.

- But it's a type of succulent called a stonecrop.

There's various varieties.

But we love it here.

Easy to maintain.

- And it also blooms, doesn't it?

- And it will bloom.

Yes, yes.

- Tell me about lamb's ear.

- Lamb's ear is not only beautiful but great to touch.

- I know.

This is my kid's favorite.

It's so soft.

- Yes, yes.

We love to put it in our children's garden.

But again, high in water content.

Will bloom eventually, which is a good sign, again, in the heat of the summer, that it has a lot of water within its leaves.

And it spreads very, very well.

So a small lamb's ear you buy at the nursery will easily within a year become this size.

So if you're trying to fill space in your firewise garden, this is a great option.

- But it also has like a beautiful purple, pinky flower.

- Yes.

Beautiful contrast with the color of the leaves.

- I love an iris, and this one's on its way out.

But look at that beautiful light purple.

Okay, so irises also work, right?

- Yes.

Yeah.

And I love the addition of irises because they're such a unique shape.

- Yes.

- And again, there's so much dimension you can add within a firewise landscape, and this one adds a little bit of height, which is wonderful, but still safe for fires.

- For sure.

And you can feel, I mean, these leaves definitely are keeping the water content in there.

And they're beautiful: shape and everything.

- Yes.

- I love that low-growing yarrow.

That's so cool.

- I know.

Anything that is drought tolerant to our area typically do really well in our climate.

And as long as they're spaced properly, it reduces the chance of that fire spreading.

- But tell me more about like the benefits of gravel versus grass, because grass people might think, "Well, I water it so it's going to keep the moisture in.

It's gonna keep that."

But what's better, grass or- - Of course, gravel is a little bit better.

It just doesn't burn.

Does it help continue that spread?

You can still plant grasses.

It's just recommended to keep them short and well-watered, which is never easy in a drought.

So in a drought, water conservation-wise, I would go with rocks.

- Go with rocks, okay.

And then what are you putting under the rocks?

Like do you have a fire-retardant tarp underneath, or like a ground covering?

- Underneath we just have, we put compost down, a nice weed barrier.

And then the rocks just go right on top.

And then when you wanna plant something new in your garden, you just easily move those rocks away, make a little slit in your weed barrier, and put in a new firewise plant.

- Okay, great.

But the weed barrier though is not like fire retardant?

- Not that I'm aware of.

But if anyone wants to make one.

- I'm sure there's a business opportunity right there.

(both laughing) Oh, that's awesome.

Natalie, thank you so much for letting us come check out this awesome space and all the cool things that you guys have done here to show the community what you can do with a firewise garden.

(light music)