The ‘Greening of Rose Avenue’ Is Deeply Rooted in Red Tape

President George Bush wants to plant 1 billion trees in America this year, 10 billion by the year 2000. Mayor Tom Bradley has pledged to plant 3 to 5 million in Los Angeles.

Yet on Rose Avenue in Venice, my local community group had trouble planting 20 trees.

Our project began in the fall of 1987. Venice was a battle zone. Some neighbors were at each other’s throats over the expansion of a homeless feeding program located on Rose Avenue, while others took to the street to demonstrate against the building of a storage facility there.

To bring people back together in a kinder and gentler way, a colleague and I came up with “The Greening of Rose Avenue”--a community tree-planting. Everyone likes trees.

I had a vested interest. As a new Venice homeowner, I thought it wouldn’t hurt property values if Venice--sometimes called “where the trash meets the sea”--tidied itself up.

Also, because I am from the state of Washington, I know the powerful effect trees can have on people, especially beautiful trees.

I wanted to bring that effect to Rose Avenue. In contrast to its lovely name, Rose Avenue is an ugly street where shops co-exist with modest houses and crowded apartments. It’s a street where the staid Pacific Jewish Center looks out on a Pic ‘n’ Save. However, like the rest of Venice, Rose Avenue is in transition: It is the world headquarters for the billion-dollar-a-year advertising company Chiat/Day/Mojo; most recently it is home to a 29-foot clown ballerina sculpture.

We formed a group, and like President Bush and Mayor Bradley, we soon had big plans. Over coffee and muffins at the Rose Cafe, our idea grew from a few trees in tubs set on the sidewalks (illegal) to a dramatic planting that stretched from Ocean Front Walk all the way to Lincoln Avenue. Since Rose was already such a hodgepodge (“It’ll look like Tijuana with trees,” someone said), we needed one species of tree that would pull the street together in a strong, unified statement.

We decided on the jacaranda, and our newly formed group of six tree groupies obtained the enthusiastic backing of our community group, the Venice Action Committee.

One very early morning in January, 1988, Robert W. Kennedy, superintendent, Department of Public Works, Street Tree Division, came out from City Hall to meet with us. We had coffee, Danish and our Sunset Western Garden Book.

“No jacarandas,” said Kennedy.

We didn’t doubt his sincerity and commitment. He had come out to inspect Rose Avenue and eat breakfast with us at 7 a.m., and did so again several times. He thought the jacaranda’s blanket of purple blossoms constituted a litter problem. Also, the jacaranda is a moderately quickly growing tree with a large canopy, and Kennedy’s job contains a Catch 22: The same person who helps groups plant trees also heads up the department in charge of pruning trees--a department so understaffed that the 680,000 trees already in Venice get pruned only once every seven years.

The blue curbside “X”s, which the Street Tree Division had painted at the time of Kennedy’s first visit to mark where we could plant our 130 trees, faded as our committee went around and around with the city trying to agree on the species. We were frustrated by wanting an evergreen and the city’s advice that some people don’t like evergreens because in winter the shade is too cold. We were not pleased with the city’s favorite: the New Zealand Christmas tree (silver-leafed, this tree even starts out looking dusty).

We switched tactics.

We would plant roses on Rose Avenue.

That was quickly vetoed. “Roses in a grassy parkway constitute a trip and fall hazard,” said Kennedy.

Grassy parkway sounds idyllic--like a place a place where small children might romp. Here it refers to a 12-inch strip of dirt and weeds next to the curb.

We settled on the Australian Willow, a tree no one had heard of or particularly liked, but one which we could get approved.

The city also reminded us that a condition of our getting approval to plant any trees on Rose Avenue was that we had agreed to pave the grassy parkway. “It’ll make a scuzzy area look cleaner,” said Kennedy.

The next hurdle, fund raising, was easier because trees have appeal, and promising to place a plaque at the base of the tree that identified its donor made the trees a hot item.

“No plaques,” said Kennedy. “Will your group be liable when someone trips on a raised plaque?” We went to work devising a way to install the plaques so they would be flush with the concrete tree well covers.

Because the city had no unified process to streamline citizen plantings, before the planting began we were so bogged down in tree well covers, root ball barriers, double-staking, concrete coring, water trucks and multiple permits that we wanted to throw up our hands.

Except we couldn’t. We’d raised almost $30,000, and the Greening of Rose Avenue was so hot that the idea had expanded to the Greening of Venice.

The TreePeople advised us to simplify and plant 15-gallon trees, using community volunteers. “Tree planting is so profoundly personal,” said Andy Lipkis, president of TreePeople. “It comes down to a one-on-one relationship.”

Yet our location, a sand and wind corridor right off the beach, demanded well-established, mature specimens. These 10-foot tall trees with 24-inch root balls weighed several hundred pounds, intimidating to volunteer planters. We hired a landscape contractor.

It seemed like a miracle when, by November, 1988, almost a year after we had first had the idea, we finally were able to plant 20 trees. I looked at Rose Avenue and was exhausted thinking about planting the rest of our goal of 130 trees by the city rules.

“When you have a large urban forest like Los Angeles--maybe the largest urban forest in America--with diverse communities, diverse plant species, diverse jurisdictions, all these complexities, you need regulations to ensure uniformity throughout the city,” Kennedy said. “You can’t have Tom planting one way today and Alice planting another way tomorrow.”

What if one were to throw out the book, and become a street tree vigilante?

I turned to John Wheeler, who is heading up Earth Corps, the new volunteer group in Washington, D.C., that is advising the President on tree planting. Wheeler aims to have planted 10 billion trees by the year 2000. “Go back and plant 10 more,” Wheeler said. “Just do it. Get a public groundswell going. Tell the newspapers. Combine ‘60s chutzpah with your current maturity. It’ll be great video. Get a fight going. Raise the volume to boom-box level.”

It is 2 1/2 years since we began, a year since I have been involved with the planting. Jay Griffith, a landscape designer, has taken on the task of planting the next 30 trees on Rose Avenue--and by the rules--although, he says: “The city’s stringent rules make it so prohibitive and costly.” (A single mature specimen cost about $300 to plant when we began our project; that cost has risen to $500.)

“I use your group as an example,” Kennedy told me recently, “a good example of how a community group changed the overall appearance of a street. You didn’t just plant trees, but you also filled in the grassy parkway with cement. No one has done that.”

I was at least proud of that. But we wanted to plant trees, not pour hundred of yards of concrete.

Still, every time I see the 20 Australian Willows planted to date on Rose Avenue, I get a thrill. We did it. At least, we started the Greening of Rose Avenue.