You’ve just moved into a house. It’s in the neighborhood you want to live in, you did your research, you’ve just been through everything with realtors, insurance agents, your bank, your accountant, now you’re working with contractors to fix, tweak, and polish all the little things that aren’t right about the building.

But besides all that, you also find yourself staring at the land around the house. The green strip that decorates the property, provides a buffer, a sense of space for the architecture to stand within. There’s probably grass, maybe a patio, a tree here and there, roses perhaps, and a handful of plants, some with flowers and some without, that you recognize from all over the city but you could never in your life attach to a name.

This is your land. These are your nameless plants. These are your resources--your water, your soil, your nitrogen--and what you do with them is your choice alone. You are not only a homeowner, but also a land owner. You own and administer California real estate, some of the priciest square footage in the world. What should you do with it? Your strip that used to be ranchero, and then it was an orchard or farm, before it was claimed by the city, parceled into a home.

Over the holidays, my family traveled to Europe to see my sister who works in Copenhagen. While we visited many places during our trip, Barcelona’s public landscaping was a major highlight. On our last day there, I split off from my family and ended up walking near the coast. I came upon a large park overflowing with joggers and bicyclists. The park’s landscaping felt a lot like Los Angeles, featuring decomposed granite pathways and even palm trees, but there was one key difference: orange trees.

Many Angelenos argue against the inclusion of orange trees in publicly landscaped areas based upon concerns about fallen fruit. Would it be a nuisance? Would it attract homeless people? Providing sustenance to the homeless is undoubtedly a good thing, yet most municipalities would rather it happen elsewhere.  Somehow other nuisance trees make the cut. Los Angeles grows a bumper crop of liquid ambers that litter our sidewalks with spikey fruit nicknamed “ankle breakers” for the hazard they pose to pedestrians.

It's worth noting that she did a bit of landscaping along with the installation of our raised bed gardens; among other things, she tore out quite a bit of lawn and replaced it with a xeriscape. Increasingly, this is something that we have been urging new members to do and the result has been some particularly beautiful installations.