Project to Help Spruce Up Trail Is Taking Root

It’s going to take two years, but starting in the spring of 1999, residents will be treated to an annual display of colorful blooms along Sunland Boulevard in the Sunland-Tujunga area, thanks to a group of community volunteers.

Working with the Los Angeles Conservation Corps, hundreds of volunteers spent part of Presidents Day planting more than 130 sapphire dragon trees along the Sunland Boulevard Multiuse Trail.

The trees, named for their blue, dragon-shaped flowers, were planted as part of a community beautification project celebrating the opening of the trail last October.

Extending along a two-mile stretch of Sunland Boulevard, the trail offers equestrians, bicyclists and pedestrians an artery connecting them to a network of trails in the Angeles National Forest and Hansen Dam Recreation Area.

“I was expecting 50 to 75 people and it was quite a nice surprise. By 8 a.m. we had about 200 people out there,” said Ida Baker, who received a certificate from Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs on Monday for her work in organizing the project.

Baker, a member of the Shadow Hills Property Owners Assn. and Shadow Hills Presbyterian Church, said she rides the trail several days a week on her horse.

She said she selected the sapphire dragon trees, which will reach their maximum height of about 25 feet in three years, not just because of their beautiful blooms but for more practical reasons.

“They are resistant to wind, they don’t require pruning and the roots won’t crack the sidewalks,” she said.

The trees are only four inches to a foot tall. In two years, however, when they have matured, they will begin their colorful annual display, Baker said.

“I believe this will be the most beautiful boulevard in America,” she said.