Screen of Oleanders : Students to Add Color Along Canoga Railway

In a greenhouse at Canoga Park High School, soaking up droplets of moisture at precisely timed intervals, are hundreds of tiny oleander bushes and cuttings that will soon beautify stretches of Victory Boulevard and Canoga Avenue along the Southern Pacific railroad tracks.

As soon as the weather cools, 100 of the flowering shrubs will be planted along a 1,000-foot-long stretch of the tracks in Canoga Park as a community project of the high school’s agriculture classes.

Hundreds more will be planted in years to come, both to help camouflage railroad tracks that are considered eyesores and to teach students how to propagate shrubbery.

5-Year Project

The project will be continued for at least five years as the cuttings mature, and will be extended along the tracks as far north as Chatsworth, said Steve Pietrolungo, the agriculture teacher supervising the project.

The first bushes will be planted 10 feet apart along a -mile stretch of railroad track bordering Victory Boulevard between Canoga and De Soto avenues, he said.

“We want to screen out the tracks,” Pietrolungo said. “This will put color in.” In addition, “the plants act as a natural air filter,” he said. “They filter out dust.”

About 100 small oleanders were donated in April by the Green Thumb Nursery in Canoga Park, Pietrolungo said.

Each semester, Pietrolungo has five classes of 30 students each studying floriculture--the study of flowers--as well as horticulture and agriculture. Students in Pietrolungo’s spring classes did the first cuttings.

Agriculture classes at the school will continue the project by taking cuttings from the mature oleanders and planting them to create still more. From the 100 donated trees, the school already has about 500 cuttings in various stages of maturation. Pietrolungo hopes the classes can plant a fourth of a mile of track per year.

‘Students Really Care’

Chris Jesberg, 16, an agriculture student taking part in the project, said it also will “show the community the students really care about the city and want to improve it.”

Several Canoga Park residents living near the tracks greeted news of the planting with enthusiasm and relief that the beautification comes at no cost to them.

“That’s great,” said one, Robert Cruz, a 56-year-old machinist who lives just north of the tracks. “The city was supposed to put up all kinds of shrubbery there around five years ago. They never did it, and it looks like heck.”

Oleanders are commonly planted along freeways and streets because they are drought-resistant, hardy and colorful, Pietrolungo said.

The trees are profuse growers and, within five years, should have a height and spread of up to 10 feet, Pietrolungo said. The varieties of trees selected will produce pink, peach, white and red flowers, he added.

Once the oleanders are planted, a city crew will water them once every 10 days until the rainy season, Pietrolungo said.

“We hope it will beautify the surroundings and give Canoga Park more of a park-like atmosphere,” Pietrolungo said.

This is not the first time the school’s agriculture department has beautified the community. Last year, the Canoga Park Future Farmers of America won a first-place prize from Los Angeles Beautiful, a nonprofit organization, for landscaping the Canoga Park Community Center.