Lifestyle
They turned a junk-filled L.A. yard into a weird and wonderful habitat garden
If a wildlife show wanted to film in the middle of Los Angeles, Casa Apocalyptica — a dizzying jungle of native plants, abundant wildlife, soothing water and salvaged debris — would be a great place to land.
Here, slender salamanders slink through the leaf litter under robust stands of Santa Cruz Island buckwheat and California fuchsia. Dozens of bright red flame skimmer dragonflies chase around a hand-dug pond and rubble-strewn stream.
By day, birdsong is as omnipresent as Muzak at a mall; frogs serenade the night. Near the house, a couple of koi as big as human babies lurch out of their long, raised pool for a head pat and their favorite treat — slices of watermelon.
Except for a few fruit trees, almost every plant in the ground is native to California, including the Roger’s Red grapes that grow in a lush tangle over arbored patios, cooling the temperatures beneath a good 10 degrees — and all thriving without regular irrigation.
Koi fish munch on watermelon in the backyard of Chris Elwell and Kory Odell’s Mid-Wilshire home.
An overhead view of the koi pond.
And most remarkable: This whole part art, part wilderness adventure is contained in the sloping, 12,000-square-foot yard that surrounds a grand 1910 Craftsman home renovated by Chris Elwell and Kory Odell after the spouses bought the dilapidated property in 2003 in the small Mid-Wilshire neighborhood known as Oxford Square.
Their abundant native landscape growing out of 100 years of detritus-turned-garden treasures has earned them mythic status in the native plant world, and made them a must-see fixture on the Theodore Payne Foundation’s spring Native Plant Garden Tours for more than a decade.
“Casa Apocalyptica imagines our native ecology returning through the rubble after people are gone,’” the couple wrote in this year’s garden tour explainer. But nature got a lot of help from the two men, and if they’d known then how much work it would require, Elwell said, shaking his head, who knows if they would have gone ahead.
Except, listening to them talk, it’s clearly work they relished.
They’d wanted to move into a neighborhood of old homes in 2003, but the massive Craftsman mansion they chose was in terrible shape. Bars covered every window, neither the plumbing nor the electricity worked and all the trademark natural wood had been painted white. The backyard was full of rubble.
“Our friends and family thought we were nuts. They were like, ‘Why are you putting all this time and effort into this old wreck of a house?’” Elwell said.
Kory Odell, left, and Chris Elwell in their yard at Casa Apocalyptica.
“But Kory had grown up working on houses, and we wanted a project, and a big yard for a garden,” he added. “The house was more than we’d bargained for, but we were obsessed with building something ourselves and making it authentic to us. And I like the beauty of things that are being overlooked. I felt like there were all these cool neighborhoods right under our noses and everybody’s ignoring them.”
The restoration took most of their free time, but it was also therapeutic, an artistic outlet after a stressful day at work, Elwell said. “But the garden sat for some time because we had so much to do on the house.”
It wasn’t until 2007 that they began on the yard, Elwell said, and both were still working full-time. Odell, now part of the executive team building the Metro Purple Line, was working with a midsize construction firm. And Elwell, now retired, was a television distribution executive with Sony Pictures.
Once again, their free time went to transformation. The front yard was a dense thicket of “freeway ice plant” that required several dumpster loads to haul away, and the bare-dirt sloping backyard was full of interesting trash that people had been dumping for 100 years — “old motorcycle parts, water heaters from the 1920s, horseshoes, lots of whiskey bottles, and lots of old cobblestones and bricks and building materials.”
To their eyes, the “junk” was weirdly wonderful, and it gave them their theme: L.A. after the apocalypse, with native plants growing in and around society’s broken remains.
A rusted metal contraption sits surrounded by plants.
Plummer’s mariposa lily.
A candelabra rests at the bottom of the front yard pond.
The salvaging got to be kind of joke. Odell’s firm was doing earthquake retrofits, and during site demolitions he’d discover some new artifacts, like industrial-sized valves that might have been used in oil fields or a box of long rusty files. “So I’d be at work,” Elwell said, “and get this text with photos of something like an old radiator followed by this question: ‘TREASURE?’”
Neighbors got into the act as well, inviting the couple over to look at things their elders had squirreled away decades earlier. “They’d say, ‘Dad hasn’t opened that door in 20 years; let’s see what’s in there.’”
The landscaping was part inspiration and part experiment, guided by fun, Elwell said, and plenty of mistakes.
One of the first was going whole hog into native plants without understanding anything about them. For instance, Odell loved the manzanitas that grow prolifically around his family’s 40-acre ranch in Shasta County.
So they got a tractor and dug one up to replant in L.A. “It looked great for about six weeks, and then it died,” Elwell said. “That’s how naive we were. So it became a research project — how do you get these things to grow?”
Their research led them to the website of Las Pilitas Nursery, a Santa Margarita grower specializing in California native plants. Bert Wilson, its founder, died in 2014, but his extensive descriptions about native plants “are super helpful to beginners,” Elwell said. “He approached it with a level of fun, writing things like, ‘I know this plant is really tough because we’ve run over it with a tractor several times and it always comes back.’”
Many of the metal objects in the yard have been overtaken by the plant growth.
From there, they began frequenting the Theodore Payne Foundation in Sun Valley, one of Southern California’s premier native plant nurseries, “and as a new gardener, I just wanted to buy everything,” Elwell said. “I was treating the plants more like furniture than ecology. I’d say, ‘Oh, that looks cool.’ I was not thinking, ‘Does it really make sense to plant something that normally grows on an alpine slope at sea level in clay soil?’”
As their knowledge grew, their focus shifted to creating habitat for regional pollinators, birds and other animals. And habitats need water, a realization that had unexpected benefits.
When Odell broke his elbow in a mountain biking accident, he quickly mastered the simple rehabilitation exercises his doctor provided. So when Elwell said he wanted a pond in the front yard, Odell was immediately on board.
“He’s just the kind of person where you point out what you want to do, and he says, ‘OK, let’s go,’” Elwell said. “So he just went charging in with a pickaxe to dig out the hole and a 30-pound digging bar to move the boulders” for a roughly 8-by-12-foot pond, complete with a small waterfall fed by recirculating water (flowing through an oversized recycled spigot) and a large boulder that he drilled out in the middle to provide a gentle bathing area for tiny drinkers. Oh, and a now-large toyon and mountain mahogany on either side to provide partial shade.
When Odell returned for a checkup a few weeks later, his doctor was amazed at how well his arm had healed. “He said, ‘How did you do that?’” Odell said, “And I said, ‘By doing everything you told me not to do.’”
They did bring in a contractor to build the spacious patios off the kitchen and living room, a long narrow koi pond with a Medusa head fountain and a wide swimming pool that follows the slope of the hill.
A fountain bearing a relief of Medusa’s head pours into the koi pond in the backyard.
Naked buckwheat.
The backyard of the home features a swimming pool nearly enveloped by large stands of native plants.
But that’s where their “modern” landscaping stops. Instead of lawn or little potted palms around the pool, there are oversize stands of desperado sage, a fragrant hybrid between white sage and purple sage, growing so untamed they’re nearly spilling into the pool.
Odell rented an excavator to slice the bottom of the slope into a cliff, shored up by the dirt excavated for the pool, along with recycled broken concrete and other rubble. He used old railroad tracks to create steps down to the bottom of the slope. He carved out a narrow ditch between the cliff and steps, and that became a recirculating stream that flows into a little marsh full of frogs, butterflies and dragonflies.
Like their home, the yard is divided into “rooms,” or separate experiences, so sitting by the pool, you can’t see the koi pond with its restless fish or the little stream burbling just 10 feet away, or the ornate handmade pergola that offers shade at the bottom of the hill.
Walking this yard is an adventure that reveals itself slowly. Years ago a Mama Bear manzanita (Arctostaphylos ‘Mama Bear’) finally took hold in their side yard, almost entirely covering the old driveway; further up, a hedge of citrus trees produce lemons the size of mangoes.
Plastic planters collect cobwebs on a shelf in the yard.
A dragonfly lands on a plant near one of the yard’s water features.
There are a few other fruit trees on the property, but mostly it’s a riot of native plants with enough variety that even in the summer, when many California native plants go dormant, the garden is full of fragrance and color — bright purple wands of woolly blue curls that smell as sweet as bubble gum; sticky yellow and red monkeyflowers, tall mallows with large flowers in orange and lavender, pinkish white bouquets on the narrow milkweed and sunflowers and fuchsias nearly ready to bloom.
Needless to say, friends and family don’t question their decision now. They deliberately designed the outdoors for entertaining, with a huge welcoming table off the kitchen and bobbing solar lanterns in the clear inviting pool. And over the years they bought the houses on either side of them, and now rent them out to a nephew and friends.
The gates between the properties are always open, and when it’s time for loved ones to gather, Elwell said, it’s only a matter of when — the “where” is never a question.
Britney Spears
Open to Treatment Plan After DUI Arrest, Source Says
Published
Britney Spears‘ team is hoping the judge mandates treatment for the pop star over jail time following her Wednesday DUI arrest … and Britney isn’t fighting them on that, TMZ has learned.
Sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ … Britney is willing to comply with a treatment and support plan.
We’re told her team is in the early stages of developing a plan and they’re exploring multiple options, including mental health services, detox, and dual-diagnosis programs.
It’s unclear whether she would do inpatient or outpatient treatment, and it’s also unclear whether she would enter treatment before her May 4 court date.
Broadcastify.com
We broke the story … Britney was pulled over by California Highway Patrol officers around 9:30 PM Wednesday in Westlake Village, CA, not far from her home. She was later taken to a hospital — not for any injuries, because we’re told she didn’t sustain any — but to draw her blood to determine her blood alcohol content.
According to CHP, she was arrested for “driving under the influence of a combination of drugs and alcohol.”
Sources familiar with the investigation told us an unknown substance was found in Britney’s car, which was sent to be tested.
Britney’s manager, Cade Hudson, previously told TMZ … “This was an unfortunate and inexcusable incident. Britney will take the right steps, comply with the law, and we hope this marks the start of long-overdue change in her life. She needs help and support during this difficult time. Her boys will be spending time with her, and her loved ones are putting a plan in place to set her up for success and well-being.”
Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers Smoke and Stack in Sinners.
Warner Bros. Pictures
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Warner Bros. Pictures
Ryan Coogler’s supernatural horror stars Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers who open a 1930s juke joint in Mississippi. Opening night does not go as planned when vampires appear outside. “In a straightforward metaphor for all the ways Black culture has been co-opted by whiteness, the raucous pleasures and sonic beauty of the juke joint attract the interest of a trio of demons … they wish to literally leech off of the talents and energy of Black folks,” writes critic Aisha Harris. The film made history with a record 16 Academy Award nominations.
We asked our NPR audience: What movie would you recommend to someone who loved Sinners? Here’s what you told us:
Near Dark (1987)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow; starring Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen
If you want another cool vampire movie with Western kind of vibes, check out Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark — super underseen and kind of hard to find, but really gritty and sexy and another very different take on what you might think is a genre that had been wrung dry. – Maggie Grossman, Chicago, Ill.
30 Days of Night (2007)
Directed by David Slade; starring Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston
It follows a group of people in a small Alaskan town as they struggle to survive an invasion of vampires who have taken advantage of the month-long absence of the sun. Both this and Sinners revolve around a vampire takeover and the people’s fight to outlast the “night.” – Nathan Strzelewicz, DeWitt, Mich.
The Wailing (2016)
Directed by Na Hong-jin; starring Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee, Jun Kunimura
In this South Korean supernatural horror film, a mysterious illness causes people in a quiet rural village to become violent and murderous. A local police officer investigates while trying to save his daughter, who begins showing the same disturbing symptoms. The film blends folk horror, religion, and psychological dread, exploring themes of faith, evil, and moral weakness. Like Sinners, it centers on a supernatural force corrupting a close-knit community, builds slow-burning tension, and examines spiritual conflict and human frailty. – Amy Merke, Bronx, N.Y.
Fréwaka (2024)
Directed by Aislinn Clarke; starring Bríd Ní Neachtain, Clare Monnelly, Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya
In this Irish folk horror film, a home care worker, Shoo, is assigned to stay with an elderly woman who’s convinced she’s under siege by malevolent fairies. Like Sinners, Fréwaka blends folk traditions and social commentary with horror. The social failures Shoo copes with (untreated mental health issues, religious abuse) are just as frightening as the supernatural forces. – Kerrin Smith, Baltimore, Md.
And a bonus pick from our critic:
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
Directed by George C. Wolfe; starring Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Glynn Turman
This is an adaptation of August Wilson’s play about a legendary blues singer (Viola Davis) muscling through a recording session with white producers who want to control her music. Chadwick Boseman’s blistering in his final role. – Bob Mondello, NPR movie critic
Carly Rubin and Ivy Buck contributed to this project. It was edited by Clare Lombardo.
The tiny town of West Goshen, Calif., was exactly the kind of place that community solar was designed for.
Near Visalia, most of its 500 residents live in mobile homes, where companies won’t install rooftop panels without a solid foundation. And until recently, they used propane for heating and cooking, with price fluctuations in the winter posing hardships for low-income families.
Community solar, in which residents get a discount on their bills for subscribing as a group to small solar arrays nearby, was designed to help low-income residents, apartment dwellers, renters and others who can’t put panels on their own roofs.
Over the last 11 years, New York, Maine, Minnesota, Massachusetts and other states have built thriving community solar programs. But California has built, at most, only 34 projects since 2015, and experts say that’s a generous accounting.
“We’ve had community solar for a dozen years, and it simply has not produced anything of scale and anything of note,” said Derek Chernow, director of Californians for Local, Affordable Solar and Storage, a developer trade group that’s pushing to get a more robust program off the ground. “Projects don’t pencil out.”
The West Goshen residents were among the lucky few, becoming part of a community solar project in 2024.
“It has kind of allowed us to kind of breathe a little bit,” said resident and community organizer Melinda Metheney. Her bill has dropped by about $300 in the summer months, thanks to the 20% community solar discount, stacked with other low-income discounts and clean energy incentives, she said.
West Goshen’s panels sit about 10 miles out of town, in a field surrounded by farms. Energy and climate experts agree California must add much more clean energy to its grid, some 6 gigawatts by 2032, the California Public Utilities Commission said in a new plan last week.
Assemblymember Christopher M. Ward (D-San Diego), who in 2022 authored a bill to create a more effective community solar program, said the state needs to double its annual solar installation rate to reach that goal and is not on track to do that using only large utility-scale solar farms and individual rooftop arrays.
“We need mid-scale community solar,” he said.
Energy and climate experts agree California must add much more clean energy to its grid, some 6 gigawatts by 2032, the California Public Utilities Commission said in a new plan last week. Above, solar panels at Extra Space Storage in Pico Rivera.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
He and a coalition of environmental groups, solar developers and the Utility Reform Network, a ratepayer advocacy group, worked to put his 2022 law into effect. They coalesced around requiring utilities to pay community solar developers and customers for the electricity they feed to the grid using the same formula they use for people who install rooftop solar.
But in May 2024, the California Public Utilities Commission decided to go with a late-in-the-game proposal backed by the state’s investor-owned utilities to pay community solar at a lower rate.
The agency, along with its public advocate’s office, argued that crediting solar developers at the higher rate would raise bills for customers who don’t have solar, who would still have to shoulder the cost of grid maintenance. It’s similar to the argument they’ve made to cut incentives for rooftop solar.
The new program relied on federal money, including the Biden administration’s Solar for All, to sweeten the deal for developers. But the utilities commission spent very little of the $250 million available under that grant before the Trump administration tried to claw it back last summer, and now it is held up in litigation.
At a legislative oversight hearing last week, Kerry Fleisher, the commission’s director of distributed energy resources, blamed the loss for the new program’s failure to launch.
“There’s been a tremendous amount of uncertainty in terms of the Solar for All funding that was intended to supplement this program,” Fleisher said. “That’s part of the reason why this has taken longer than normal.” She said the commission still plans to release a program in the next several months.
Ward, the San Diego lawmaker who wrote the community solar bill, called the program “fatally flawed” in an interview.
He’s now considering a bill to bring the community solar program more in line with what he initially envisioned — higher incentives, requirements for battery storage, and compliance with state law that mandates new houses be built with solar.
A study last year funded by a solar trade group found that could save California’s electric system $6.5 billion over 20 years. But Ward’s effort to revive his program last year failed to pass the Assembly appropriations committee.
“All the other states in our country that have adopted similar community solar program models, they are working,” said Ward, adding that 22 states have programs comparable to the one solar advocates want in California. “The writing on the wall suggests that, exactly as we feared years ago, this was not the way to go.”
California Public Utilities Commission spokesperson Terrie Prosper called California “a leader in cost-effective, least-cost solar deployment overall compared to any other state,” in an emailed statement.
Under the commission’s definition, the state has brought on 34 projects, representing 235 megawatts of community solar. But studies from groups such as the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Wood Mackenzie use different definitions for community solar, and they show California far behind at least 10 other states.
Meanwhile, advocates and developers involved in successful community solar projects in California say they were difficult to get off the ground.
Homes in the Avocado Heights area of Los Angeles County are part of a community solar project.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
One that came online in May in the unincorporated communities of Bassett and Avocado Heights in the San Gabriel Valley provides solar electricity to about 400 low-income residents. They get 20% discounts on their electric bills for subscribing to panels installed on two Extra Space Storage building rooftops in Pico Rivera.
Organizers said it took nearly five years to find the right location and comply with utility requirements. They also got a grant in addition to funding provided by the state utilities commission’s solar program.
It “would not have happened if it hadn’t been for the grant,” said Genaro Bugarin, a director at the Energy Coalition nonprofit that proposed and coordinated the project.
Brandon Smithwood, vice president of policy at Dimension Energy, the developer for the project in West Goshen, said he still hopes to see a community solar program in California that compensates projects for the way they help out the grid.
“We’ve seen it can work, and we know what we have won’t work,” Smithwood said at the hearing.
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