Native Plants

Biological diversity does not come easily near the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Hoover Street. The neighborhood just west of downtown is one of the most crowded in Los Angeles County, with 25,352 people per square mile. It's chock-full of buildings and has lots of pavement, little landscaping and many economically disadvantaged families. In that setting, Leo Politi Elementary School wanted only to make a dreary corner of campus more inviting to its 817 students. Workers ripped out 5,000 square feet of concrete and Bermuda grass three years ago and planted native flora.

It took three years and more than $26 million to turn an old MTA bus yard in South Los Angeles into what it is today: a sprawling park and urban wetland that will store and clean millions of gallons of storm water — while also giving children a place to play. The gates to the new park, built on nine acres at Avalon Boulevard and 54th Street, were opened to the public Thursday. Residents say it is a welcome addition to a neighborhood that is sorely in need of green space. City officials say decades of lax zoning practices have left many of the area's residential streets blighted with warehouses, mechanic shops and scrap yards.

The park surrounding Los Angeles City Hall will soon be getting a California makeover, with less green grass and more native and drought-tolerant plants. The City Council voted Tuesday on a plan to restore the grounds around the building after the sprawling lawn was destroyed last year by the Occupy L.A. encampment. Officials considered several options, including one that called for much of the grass to be replanted and another that would have eliminated nearly all of the turf and replaced it with plants that require less water.

Occupy L.A. raised consciousness about something else besides income disparity: landscaping. After the two-month encampment turned the lawn around City Hall into a sprawl of dirt, the debate now is whether to replant it with grass or take the opportunity of this topographical upheaval to do something more environmentally sound. Using drought-tolerant native plantings would give the city a chance to create a high-profile, less-thirsty panorama on the 1.7 acres surrounding City Hall, and would set an example for city residents whom it has urged to replace water-guzzling lawns with indigenous flora.

Occupy L.A. protesters planned to leave their mark on City Hall's park with graffiti declarations and treehouses when they were evicted in late November. Instead, they left behind a park stripped of its lush north and south lawns, creating a financial and planning burden for the city and a waiting game for the displaced farmers market that has held sway every Thursday. But in a way, the land is a blank canvas for the city's Recreation and Parks Department, which must decide how to landscape a bit more than 1.7 acres of now-barren soil.

Unless you want to spend a few weeks scratching like a dog, don't even think of petting this pretty little poodle. Campers, hikers, emergency crews and park rangers are learning the hard way about a little-known poisonous plant that has painted the hillsides of the Angeles National Forest a lovely lavender this summer: the poodle-dog bush. A species of plant that thrives in areas scorched by wildfire, the lavender-flowered Turricula parryi packs a bite. Skin contact can cause rashes, blisters, swelling and general irritation.

I still remember the moment in my childhood in which I lost all faith in the innocent purity of plants. One day, I was a carefree adolescent at summer camp, exploring the leafy woods with my fellow campers. A couple of days later, I was an illustration for a medical textbook. "The worst case of poison ivy I've ever seen!" the camp nurse told the other staffers as she trotted me and my dime-sized blisters around for inspection. OK, I kind of enjoyed the attention. The slightly awestruck reaction.

The sound of hundreds of goat hooves echoed through a small valley overlooking the ocean Saturday in the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve, surprising passerby who watched as the animals munched their way through yard after yard of invasive weeds. FOR THE RECORD: Goat grazing: An article in the March 6 Section A about the use of goats to clear invasive weeds in the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve referred to boar goats. The correct term is Boer goats. ? The 230 goats are the first step in a project to restore natural flora and fauna to a 12-acre portion of the 1,400-acre preserve that was burned in a fire in 2009.

Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont displays the ravishing beauty of California's wild plants. But the setting is so operatic, it can be hard to imagine this flora on a smaller stage, say, a patio or apartment balcony. Unless you happen upon a nook where some of the native plants are potted up for a more intimate performance. On a foggy morning, a hummingbird swoops in for a sip of Cleveland sage ( Salvia clevelandii ). Impatiently, it probes the whorls of the petite lavender flowers.

  Gene Bauer has planted close to a million daffodil bulbs in the hills behind her home in the San Bernardino Mountains. For 40 years, she opened her property for three weeks each spring, free of charge, so the public could bask in the glory of all that yellowness, in the passion and hard work of a woman intent on making the world a more beautiful place. Bauer said the people who flocked to her home each year were generally polite and respectful. But she's 83 now, and preparing the property for visitors has become too much to handle.