Keep Your Garden Fire-Safe: Plants to Avoid

With wildfires constantly on the news, it’s important to take steps towards keeping your home and property safe. Homes for sale in Yountville CA and Napa Valley real estate should make sure that their gardens take the right precautions and avoid certain plants that can increase fire danger. Plants that make great kindling are not the plants to surround your home with – that means dry grasses, trees with peeling bark, dry thicket shrubs, etc.

3 Categories of Plants to Avoid

  1. Plants that collect dead material. That means fallen leaves and needles, dead plants and dry grasses. Avoid plants that have peeling bark, constant leaf drop, or dieback tendencies. It’s crucial to keep up with maintenance practices that can ensure your plants are low-risk plants. The native California buckwheat plant is drought-tolerant and low risk when maintained. But refuse to keep up with it and cut it back, and it can quickly become high-risk. Ornamental grasses, eucalyptus, bamboo, coyote bush and similar plants need to be cut back or just don’t plant them. See Ensure homes for sale in Yountville CA and Napa Valley real estate follow these suggestions.
  2. High oil or resin plants. Flames burn hot and fast through high resin wood and can even snap, crackle, pop sending flying embers. Pines or other conifers growing in your yard need to be consistently maintained and pruned. Cut thin branches and sweep fallen needles. Don’t plant conifers within tree-fall distance of your home. Keep an eye out for this when looking at homes for sale in Yountville CA and Napa Valley real estate, as you’ll need to make these landscape changes when you choose your home. Watch out for pine, juniper, cedar, cypress, fir, spruce, eucalyptus, and others.
  3. Plants with Low Moisture Leaf Content. When a leaf has high moisture content, it ignites much slower versus a leaf with low moisture. Deciduous trees have higher moisture content than evergreen and small leafed trees. Bamboo’s hollow stem and dry leaves make it very fire prone. Keep bamboo away from buildings or avoid planting completely. Eucalyptus falls in all three categories and should be avoided. Watch out for acacia, scotch broom, common gorse, larch, and more. It’s very important that you plant high water content plants like succulents, cactus, and other similar plants to protect Napa Valley real estate and homes for sale in Yountville CA as these areas are dry and hot.

Protecting your property against fires is a huge priority in Northern California. Take these recommendations seriously and consider the changes you’ll have to make in homes for sale in Yountville CA or Napa Valley real estate.

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