Resident clears hillside of pampas grass
For years, Christopher Reed would see thick clumps of pampas grass on the hillside of a nearby canyon whenever he peered out the window of his Temple Hills Drive house.
To him it looked like an invasion.
“Somebody has to nip it in the bud before it will take over,” Reed, who has lived in Laguna Beach for 10 years, recalled thinking.
Reed wanted the hillside to have what he described as a more natural look.
“I grew up in New Zealand, where people are close to the land,” said Reed, 69.
Laguna Beach considers pampas grass, known for wiry stalks with feathery white flowers at the tips, an invasive species.
“This massive shrub is a serious fire hazard and also crowds out many native plants, threatening the biological diversity of the coastal chapparral,” according to a city brochure.
About two years ago, Reed, who has taught chemistry at USC and UC Riverside, decided to do something about it. He grabbed an herbicide and began spraying the stalky, hearty grass during the first stage of what he envisioned as a larger plan.
City crews had already removed clumps of pampas grass in the area before Reed started his project.
Reed knocked on the doors of residents along a stretch of Park Avenue with a proposal.
“I asked them, ‘Would you like to pledge,’ ” Reed said.
Before Reed knew it, neighbors pitched in $1,500. With the donations and $800 of his own money, Reed purchased manzanita, lemonade berry, mallow and prickly pear and spread the plants over an acre of Park Canyon.
The portion of hillside sits just below Cindy Capretz’s house on Park Avenue. Reed used a hose from Capretz’s yard to water the plants once they were in the soil last summer.
“It’s beautiful, amazing,” said Capretz, who has lived in her house for 21 years. “No one asked him to do this.”
Reed said he doesn’t have to water the plants now since the dead pampas stalks form an effective mulch, holding in moisture.
Reed said he talked with a resident of Hillview Drive, a street that intersects Park, and the man said he had “looked into the legal ownership [of the land] and told me no one really owned it.”
“I took that as being part of Laguna’s open space,” said Reed. “No one was looking after it.”
City Manager John Pietig said he was unaware of the plantings until contacted by the Coastline Pilot.
The land was dedicated to the city as open space in 1982, Pietig said, adding that staff is looking into possible restrictions on use of the property.
“Typically, in order to modify areas dedicated as open space, permits must be submitted,” Pietig said. “At this point, there is no record of that being done.”
Reed sprayed the controversial weed killer Roundup to destroy the pampas grass. This year, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer issued a report that classified glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide, as harmful to human health.
Reed maintains that the herbicide is “completely non-toxic.”
Roundup is composed of an amino acid and phosphate ion that are both found in humans, Reed said.
“Any residue in the environment quickly reacts with water to form two separate components,” he said.
Twitter: @AldertonBryce
