Fire-smart Landscaping Tip: Clean-up and Spruce-up
It’s time to clean-up and spruce-up. By eliminating or moving combustible items surrounding your home, you can take the first step towards making your landscape fire-smart. Grab a bucket, a broom and a hand pruner and start these easy-to-do maintenance tasks today:
- Clean-up areas where wind eddies deposit leaf and plant litter along the perimeter of your home.
- Clear dead debris from flower beds close to the home.
- Rake up wood mulch within 5 feet of the home and move it to another location in your garden.
- Trim dead, damaged and diseased branches and dispose of the material in your green waste bin.
- Move common combustible fire hazards away from the area immediately surrounding your home including brooms, rakes, plastic waste bins, wood furniture, furniture cushions, wood piles, and natural fiber door mats. Move these items as far away from your house as possible – or indoors if a nearby wildfire threatens.
For more information on fire-smart landscaping, visit UC Marin Master Gardeners at http://marinmg.ucanr.edu/BASICS/FIRESMARTLANDSCAPING/
