April 20, 2004

For Immediate Release

Join Huell Howser as he Discovers

California's Green in Lawndale!

Be sure to watch KCET Channel 28 in Los Angeles on April 23, 2004 at 7:30 pm to join host Huell Howser as he explores the Hendersons’ Native Habitat!
[The Hendersons indicate the show will be repeated on May 18.]

Huell Howser’s NEW episode of his groundbreaking environmental series, “California’s Green”, spends a spring day at Hendersons’ Habitat, a private home garden of native plants, birds, and butterflies in the South Bay area of Los Angeles County.

Although Hendersons’ Habitat provides a haven for native plants and small animals, City of Lawndale officials deemed the yard a “public nuisance” and “slum” in 2003 due to the presence of natural vegetation, termed “excessive overgrown weeds” by the City. Among those who came to the aid of the Hendersons were the Urban Wildlands Group, the Theodore Payne Foundation, the California Native Plant Society, the Sierra Club, and Santa Monica environmental attorney Frank Angel. The Hendersons’ story was featured in The Daily Breeze, The Los Angeles Times, Random Lengths, The Southern Sierran, and KABC. Fortunately, with the Mayor of Lawndale on the Hendersons’ side, the City backed down and the habitat was saved.

On March 28, 2004, the Henderson garden was featured on the Theodore Payne Foundation’s First Annual Native Garden Tour, showcasing 21 native plant landscapes throughout Los Angeles County. The Native Garden Tour, sponsored in part by the Metropolitan Water District of southern California, showcased the beauty, habitat values, and water conservation benefits of native plant landscapes.

Planted in the winter of 2000, Hendersons’ Habitat was designed in the spirit of habitat restoration, using locally native plants to pay homage to the coastal dune scrub, coastal prairie, freshwater marsh, and willow scrub habitats once common to the South Bay. This owner-designed garden has received attention from water agencies, landscape designers, biologists, botanic gardens, and has been visited by everyone from local high school students to graduate-level ecology classes. The garden is home to toads, frogs, salamanders, butterflies, and large numbers of colorful and rare native birds rarely seen in the middle of L.A. The resting period of the dry California summer, the plants awakening in response to the first fall rains, the aroma of sage and sycamore – all these things provide a sense of the seasons and ultimately, a sense of place

Stroll along with Huell as he discovers the secrets of the garden, meets up with toads and goldfinches, and chats with other explorers walking the paths of Hendersons’ Habitat!

For more information on Hendersons' Habitat, please contact us at hendersonbio@earthlink.net.

Other native plant and environmental information can be found at the following websites:

http://www.theodorepayne.org/

http://www.urbanwildlands.org/index.shtml

http://www.cnps.org/index.htm

http://www.mwd.dst.ca.us/mwdh2o/pages/conserv/heritage/heritage01.html

http://www.politeo.net/lawndale/index.html

http://www.calgold.com/green/