The Hendersons' Garden

The Hendersons' Habitat will be featured on Huell Howser's PBS series California's Green on April 23 and May 18, 2004

"Lawndale's most wanted", coverage from the Southern Sierran June 2003.

This web page will be moved later in 2004 and replaced with a new habitat restoration page.

City backs down, Hendersons keep backyard habitat

Lawndale.

According to a Daily Breeze report on Jan 30, 2003, the Hendersons appear to have prevailed with the City of Lawndale, and will be permitted to keep their native plant garden. See the "Thorny garden issue resolved" in the Daily Breeze for more info. (This link is now out-of-date. If you want to read Daily Breeze, Los Angeles Times, or Random Lengths coverage on the story, you will find some stories linked below from or you will need to check with the papers or a library.)

More info

Random Lengths Article (jpeg)
Daily Breeze: Wild roots dispute
Daily Breeze: natural garden
Daily Breeze: letter to editor 01-17
Daily Breeze: editorial 01-17
Daily Breeze: letter to editor 01-20
Daily Breeze: City ads violations
See the letter of certification

Other Habitat Info

Restoration
Swamp Wings
San Pedro White Point Restoration
Palos Verdes Land Conservancy

Background...

City threatens to use police powers to remove native plants

Lawndale.

The City of Lawndale is threatening to arrest a Lawndale couple and use its police powers to forcibly remove a native plant garden that they planted in their yard. The garden, which city officials say is full of weeds, is an exemplary native plant garden that represents many hours of hard work. The garden is landscaped at least as well, if not better, than most of the other properties in the working-class neighborhood in which it is located.

The Henderson family began planting their native plant garden about three years ago, when they moved into their home which occupies about an acre of land in a Lawndale neighborhood near the 405 Freeway and Hawthorne Blvd. Amy and Brad Henderson, both botanists, put a lot of careful study into the selection of plants that they placed in the native garden portion of their yard. This included researching flora published nearly 100 years ago to understand more of what their neighborhood once looked like before it was developed.

The sandy ground on their property betrays the coastal dunes that once used to be here, vernal pools that used to form on the south side of their home, and a marsh that used to be on the north side. The native plants the Hendersons placed in one corner of their property show some of the diversity that was once here, from California sagebrush on the dunes to cattails in a small pond that they created.

The Hendersons' home is one of the oldest in the area, covering an acre of land in a where the streets and lots are narrow. The large lot gave the Hendersons the opportunity to embark on ambitious garden projects, which includes the native plant garden the city wants to remove, cacti, fruit trees, and a native grasses the Hendersons had hoped to put in their back yard. Those plans have come to a stop because of the city's action, which is a shame, considering that Southern California has lost almost all of its native grasslands.

After some news coverage about the Hendersons' property (in the Random Lengths, the Daily Breeze, and on t.v.), the City of Lawndale has added additional citations to the Hendersons' property. These include having overgrown trees, though the trees on the Hendersons' property are not the largest in the neighborhood, and not having a paved driveway. Paving the Hendersons' sandy driveway, which might be the longest in the neighborhood, will only act to increase storm water runoff and decrease rainwater absorption by the ground, neither of which are good for the environment or municipal budgets. According to news reports, the city says addition additional itemis common as they review the citation.

Lawndale's weed and vegetation ordinances are similar to many on the books around the country, and lack specifics, leaving what is a weed and what is excessive growth up to interpretation. These can lead to problems when one man's rose is another man's weed. The big irony here is that the Hendersons have had to put in many long hours "weeding" their garden of nonnative plants so they could put in natives. Now, the city wants the Hendersons to "weed" out the native plants and restore the nonnative invasives they worked so hard to remove. The additional citations placed on the Hendersons, especially when the condition of the rest of the neighborhood is considered (which as a fair number of large trees), begins to take on a pattern of deliberate harassment by the city, harassment coming from ignorant officials who are stuck in the days of water-shedding pavement, water-sucking lawns, and the destruction of our state's natural heritage to meet an antiquated and geographical inappropriate concept of "beauty".

The Hendersons are now represented by environmental attorney Frank Angel.