Meet the man who wants to restore native plants to a Laguna Beach hillside

By Bryce Alderton

June 4, 2016 6 AM PT

For years, Christopher Reed would see thick clumps of pampas grass on the hillside of a nearby canyon whenever he peered out the window of his home.

To him it looked like an invasion.

“Somebody has to nip it in the bud before it will take over,” Reed, who has lived in Laguna Beach for 10 years, recalled thinking.

He wanted the hillside to have what he described as a more natural look.

“I grew up in New Zealand, where people are close to the land,” said Reed, 69.

Laguna Beach considers pampas grass, known for its wiry stalks with feathery white flowers at the tips, an invasive species.

“This massive shrub is a serious fire hazard and also crowds out many native plants, threatening the biological diversity of the coastal chaparral,” according to a city brochure.

About two years ago, Reed, who has taught chemistry at USC and UC Riverside, decided to do something about it. He grabbed an herbicide and began spraying the hearty grass during the first stage of what he envisioned as a larger plan.

City crews already had removed clumps of pampas grass in the area before Reed started his project.

He knocked on the doors of residents along a stretch of Park Avenue with a proposal.

“I asked them, ‘Would you like to pledge?’ ” Reed said.

Before he knew it, neighbors had pitched in $1,500. With the donations and $800 of his own, Reed purchased manzanita, lemonade berry, mallow and prickly pear and spread the plants over an acre of Park Canyon.

The portion of hillside sits just below Cindy Capretz’s house.

“It’s beautiful, amazing,” said Capretz. “No one asked him to do this.”

Reed said he had spoken with one neighbor who said he had “looked into the legal ownership [of the land] and told me no one really owned it.”

“I took that as being part of Laguna’s open space,” said Reed. “No one was looking after it.”

He said he killed the remaining pampas grass using the weed killer Roundup. This year, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer issued a report that classified glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide, as harmful to human health.

Reed said the herbicide is “completely non-toxic.” Roundup is composed of an amino acid and phosphate ion that are both found in humans, Reed said. “Any residue in the environment quickly reacts with water to form two separate components,” he said.

According to City Manager John Pietig, the land was dedicated as open space in 1982. The city, he said, was looking into possible restrictions on use of the property.

“Typically, in order to modify areas dedicated as open space, permits must be submitted,” Pietig said. “At this point, there is no record of that being done.”

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Alderton writes for Times Community News