Letters: Grow what you know, L.A.

Re “This landscaping is a crime,” Column, April 7

As a Los Angeles taxpayer, this irks me no end. A $170-million cost overrun for the Los Angeles Police Department’s new headquarters, with $1 million spent on failed landscaping? You have got to be kidding me. This doesn’t even include the extra $400,000 on the latest “upgrade” to fix the grounds surrounding the building.

Los Angeles should follow the example of many cities in Nevada and Arizona: Plop down some sand, boulders, native plants and cactus and be done with it. It looks great, it’s ecologically sound and it’s cheaper to maintain. It isn’t rocket science.

Daniel V. Shannon

West Hills

So landscaping is an expensive failure at the new LAPD lawn. I am not surprised.

Why not try planting native plants? All of us at the California Native Plant Society, where I am a member, keep telling people to put in native plants if they want something that will live and be beautiful. We watch people struggle trying to grow things that originated in Africa, New Jersey or Britain. How about growing something that actually has been living in this area for the last several thousand years?

And to answer the inevitable question, “You mean plant a bunch of cactus?,” the answer is a resounding no. L.A. has never been a desert; it has what is known as a Mediterranean climate.

Mary Montes

West Hills

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