Going back to a natural look

WHEN ranger Bonnie Clarfield discovered that four California coast live oaks in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area had been hacked by vandals, she took a novel approach to covering up the gashes.

The trees, which line a trail at Rancho Sierra Vista near the Wendy Drive trail head in Newbury Park, were marred in early September. Clarfield, with the help of volunteer Cheryl Pelly, applied a nontoxic epoxy to create a makeshift “bandage” over the gashes, which she believes were made with a machete or bowie knife. The two then pressed bark found on the ground into the epoxy and -- once it dried -- painted over the patched area. The cosmetic fix, which doesn’t harm the trees, took six hours.

A week later, Clarfield and Pelly were at it again, this time patching graffiti on several sycamore trees in the Solstice Canyon area at the south end of the park.

-- Hugo Martin