Keeping the smoke at bay

Much silliness has been written about the subject of fire-safe landscaping. But as Kent says in his introduction, more than 50 lives and 11,000 structures have been lost to wildfires in California since 1990, so this is a serious subject indeed, getting more so each year as communities spread into wild areas.

Chapters discuss the kinds of wildfires and the design of houses, gardens and garden structures, with excellent advice on how to remove or prune fire-prone plants. The author lists fire-resistant plants and includes valuable information on maintenance, a topic seldom addressed by other books.

One chapter discusses the role of water, and another looks at controlling erosion after a burn. The fire season has just begun, so the time is right to put some of the useful information to work -- well before smoke appears on the horizon.

-- Robert Smaus