Using Native Plants for Fire Resistant Landscapes

Landscape contractor Greg Rubin shares how he takes advantage of natural ecological processes to create successful fire-wise landscapes using California native plants.
Greg Rubin’s home county of San Diego has been hit by many major firestorms in recent years, but the homes surrounded by landscapes his company installed did not burn. Greg has studied and implemented groundbreaking approaches to landscape design and installation that emphasize the need to emulate California’s unique natural environment in built landscapes, rather than work against these ecological adaptations.
Greg followed an unusual path to become a landscape contractor. Years of experience as an aerospace engineer enabled him to understand the thermodynamics of fire in the landscape and to develop a landscape design technique that provides beauty, greenery, and a degree of fire resistance. His technique caught the attention of the U.S. Navy, which awarded his company a five-year research project to study fire resistance in native landscapes. The results are now published, and Greg will discuss them in this presentation.
Greg Rubin is the owner of one of the largest native landscape contractors in the state, California’s Own Native Landscape Design in Escondido. Greg is co-author (with Lucy Warren) of two best-selling books from Timber Press: "The California Native Landscape" and "The Drought Defying California Landscape." He has made frequent appearances on television and radio and written articles for numerous publications. In 2018, he was chosen as Horticulturist of the Year by the San Diego Horticultural Society.