Lush, Leafy, Low-Water, Fire-Defensive Wildlife Habitat

Retired fire fighters Bob Spears and Jim Walsworth are spearheaded the renovation of the Sierra Madre Post Office gardens, an effort funded by the San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District. They envisioned removing the highly combustible junipers and arson grasses in favor of a demonstration of fire defensive landscaping.

FormLA Landscaping’s Isara Ongwiseth desgined the garden. Spears and Walsworth installed much of the garden’s infrastructure, including the expansive bioswale and subsurface, low-flow, drip irrigation and weather based controllers. The garden’s native foliage was installed by the Sierra Madre community, led and instructed by FormLA team members.

The extraordinary rains of 2023 quickly grew the foliage. The garden is now fragrant, evergreen, ever-blooming, and ever-berrying wildlife habitat! In 2024, Bob Spears and a team of Eagle Scouts expanded the Zone 0 in the adjacent, vacant lot. The structure is now surrounded by the full five-foot ember resistant zone recommended for high fire severity areas.

In October of 2025, Spears inspired the expansion of the ember resistant zone (Zone 0) around the Post Office. Noah Posin, an Eagle Scout with Pasadena Scout Troop 5, guided the work, which also included removing the arson grasses filling the vacant lot between the post office and its residential neighbors.

Plant Palette

While no plant is fire proof, there are plants that hold hydration well in high, dry heat and do not travel to wild spaces. When well placed, spaced and maintained, they can be fire defensive. See our Pinterest page for the Sierra Madre Post Office palette and several others.