Jeanette Marantos started writing for the Los Angeles Times in 1999, doing Money Makeovers until 2002. She returned to write for The Times’ Homicide Report in 2015 and the Saturday garden section in 2016, a yin and yang that kept her perspective in balance. In early 2020, she moved full time into Features, with a focus on all things flora. In June of 2023 she also began writing the monthly L.A. Times Plants newsletter, which includes a calendar of upcoming plant-related events. She is a SoCal native who spent more than 20 years in Central Washington as a daily reporter, columnist, freelancer and mom before returning to the land of eucalyptus and sage. Her present goal is to transform her yard into an oasis of native plants, fruit trees and veggies. Please email calendar submissions or plant-related story ideas to [email protected] for consideration.
Latest From This Author
You’d think L.A.’s ‘perfect’ street tree would be a California native. So why does the city plant so many trees from somewhere else? Plus a list of plant events.
Oct. 1, 2024
Many municipalities and utilities around L.A. offer free trees for residents to plant in their yards or they will add trees to parkways. Here’s a list.
Sept. 26, 2024
Our guide to Ventura offers expert tips about great bakeries, thrifting, viewsy hikes and sunset strolls.
Sept. 16, 2024
Aurora Anaya unexpectedly fell in love with California native plants and vowed to create her own native plant habitat around her corner lot in Whittier. A bonus was a yard full of fragrance and endangered monarch butterflies.
Sept. 12, 2024
Native plants have a reputation for hardiness, but it’s wrong to treat them like weeds — they need nurturing when they’re first planted to grow and thrive.
Sept. 3, 2024
In the spirit of the loud, chaotic, inimitable City of Angels, here are nine fanciful ideas for making L.A. itself the star in four years’ time.
Aug. 11, 2024
The landscapes around L.A.’s ports of entry are bleak and ugly, but we can work together and beautify our city for the 2028 Olympics.
Aug. 10, 2024
Los Angeles paid $12,500 to raze a native plant garden in Elysian Park to protect a metal storage shed from fire. Critics ask: Why and what now?
Aug. 9, 2024
Artist David Allen Burns wants to build a world full of fruit trees that people actually pick from.
Aug. 3, 2024
A 66-mile drive between Ventura and Elysian Park included 70-degree weather, then temperatures pushing 100 and then hail.
Aug. 2, 2024