Going for the Green / Freeway Crews Improve the Valley’s Landscape

If modern life sometimes makes it difficult to stop and smell the roses, it can be even tougher to get a whiff of the eucalyptus or coast cedar on a five-lane Southland freeway.

But for those willing to ease up on the throttle and take a look (and sniff) around, Los Angeles-area roadways offer a sort of herbal museum for commuters.

And the exhibit is changing. As budgets have shrunk and water supplies dwindled over the past decade, the open road has begun to take on a new look.

There are 550 miles of freeway in Los Angeles County, with 6,000 acres landscaped.

Landscape Budget

Caltrans now spends a maximum of $23,000 to landscape one acre of right of way. A residential landscape project may cost twice that amount.

Manning the Landscape

In the 1970s, Caltrans provided about one maintenance worker for every 12 landscaped acres. Budget cuts have dropped that ratio to one worker for every 30 acres.

Acres per worker since 1970 1970: 12 1980: 25 1990: 32

Why plant?

There are two primary reasons for planting along freeways, Caltrans officials say: first, to control erosion, especially along embankments; and second, to preserve the look of the area as much as possible.

Thriving in the dry lands

Such water-guzzling foliage as ice plant and ivy--once the two most common ground-covering plants along local freeways--have gone the way of gas-guzzling automobiles. Drought-resistant, low-lying shrubs as the spiny acacia redolens and myoporum parvifolium now proliferate, saving both water and money.

* Watering: Caltrans has also begun moving to automated sprinkler systems, saving water and lives, officials say. Automated systems shut off during rainstorms, and crews no longer have to park trucks, often dangerously, along narrow shoulders to turn the sprinklers on and off.

* Trees: The freeway trees of preference must be low-maintenance varieties and able to withstand the pollution, heat and pests of roadside residency. Landscape architects also prefer types that, once established, can thrive without irrigation. Common types used locally include: several species of eucalyptus, the California pepper and deodar cedars.

* Native or not: Through some conservationists have been critical of the use of non-native species in freeway landscapes, Caltrans says that although it uses natives whenever possible, some non-native plants better withstand the rigors of the roadside. Also, some soils used, especially along stretches of road in commercial areas, are not native, and native plants may not thrive in them. The eucalyptus is among the most well-known of commonly used non-native trees.

* Don’t eat the oleander: A bushy evergreen shrub that grows as high as 12 feet and decorates many freeways with white, yellow and pink flowers, all parts of the nerium oleander plant are poisonous to humans.

* A Joint Effort: Caltrans used to team up with the Los Angeles County Fire Department in planting for erosion control along local freeway right-of-ways. One such project occurred in the early 1970s along a stretch of open space adjacent to the Golden State Freeway between Castaic and Gorman. County fire helped seed the hillsides and plant tree cuttings there that would result in low- or no-maintenance foliage, says Herb Spitzer, county Fire Department forester. Cuttings from mulefat trees were taken from Santa Clarita washes and planted into hillsides. Shrubs such as salt bush were used because they would regenerate after fires.

“People don’t realize that what they see there was planted. They think it grew naturally,”

--Herb Spitzer, Fire Department forester

Sources: Caltrans; Los Angeles Fire Department

Researched by ERIC SLATER / For The Times