Rene Russo is my hero

JUST about everyone in Los Angeles has a cause, but Rene Russo's is a decidedly lonely mission. While many of her Hollywood peers use their celebrity to exalt the hybrid Prius or bash Republicans, she is championing plants that many homeowners are unfamiliar with or, worse, dismiss as weeds.

Ms. Russo has become an advocate for the use of California native plants, which she is trying to promote as a low-maintenance panacea for the region's water supply uncertainties.

"People have equated natives with chaparral, with brush, with dead, and it's erroneous," she said with obvious frustration in an interview at her Brentwood home.

"I love the garden more than the house," Ms. Russo said as she walked down the rugged paths of her property.

Flora With a Star in Its Corner - New York Times