Piñon-juniper woodland is the yard

The woodland is the planting. NMSU Los Alamos Extension: no vegetation within 5 feet of the building. No conifer trees within 30 feet of the structure. Hardscape in the 5-foot perimeter. NM EMNRD / NMSU: there are no truly fireproof plant species. Where and how you plant can be more important than what species you use. Conifers tend to be flammable due to oil and pitch, regardless of water status. The opened FireWise plant list does not name piñon or juniper. Pinus edulis currently computes as a candidate and includes NM.

You are in a Los Alamos casita keeping every piñon for the view. The demonstration sheet’s first note is empty ground for five feet, then no conifer for thirty.

This is not a New Mexico doorway.

Why it matters

“Native woodland” is easy to hear as the landscape plan. The opened NMSU sheet is hardscape at the wall. The opened EMNRD pamphlet is spacing over species, borrowed from Colorado’s Chuck Dennis. When the lab disagrees with the lists is the cone-calorimeter row for Juniperus monosperma. This page is the yard is the fuel type. Zone 0 is still not a planting list.

This site’s New Mexico plant evidence currently holds 429 USDA-distribution records. That is occurrence, not a PJ palette.

How it works

The casita (NMSU Los Alamos):

• Immediate 0–5 feet: hardscape occupies the perimeter. No vegetation within 5 feet. Gutters and roof clear. Canopy >10 feet from the roof, >15 feet from the chimney.
• No conifer trees within 30 feet of the structure.
• 5–30 feet: fuel breaks of paths and patios; grass to 4 inches; trees in small clusters; prune 6–10 feet; crowns >18 feet apart (more on slope).
• 30–100 feet, up to 200: interrupt spread; keep fire on the ground; conifer canopies >12 feet apart.
• Demonstration garden is one-fifth actual size. Do not treat the photo as a 5-foot scale.

The pamphlet (EMNRD / NMSU):

• No fireproof plants. Where and how > what.
• Conifers: oil and pitch, even when well-watered.
• Deciduous: higher moisture, less canopy fuel when dormant.
• Salt cedar: salt-tolerant and volatile oils, burns very hot. Exception, not a rule.
• Clusters and islands, not masses. Rock and gravel as fuel breaks.
• Mulch: wood chips or gravel. Avoid pine bark and thick pine needles.
• Maintenance: fire-resistant plants lose those characteristics over time.
• Heavily borrowed from CSU / Chuck Dennis. Lineage is disclosed on the pamphlet.

The list:

• Elevation bands in thousands of feet (4 through 9+).
• The source has 140 printed rows. 95 exact same-rank owners publish; 45 rows remain held rather than widened or used to mint thin records.
• Each published plant retains its exact Y / N / ? / blank elevation cells. A state match does not erase a row’s elevation condition.
• Trees named include Rocky Mountain maple, serviceberry, desert willow, New Mexico locust in the characteristics text.
• Piñon and juniper are not on the extracted tree table.

This directory:

• New Mexico: 429 records. 199 on-list, 37 avoid, 7 conflict, 186 candidate.
• Pinus edulis candidate, mid-scale, NM.
• Juniperus scopulorum avoid, consensus, NM.
• Juniperus monosperma avoid, limited-evidence. USDA states on this record do not include NM.
• Populus tremuloides on-list, NM. EMNRD names aspen as a resprouter.
• Cercocarpus montanus avoid, NM. EMNRD names mountain mahogany as low-volume vegetation. Avoid is the computed banner. Read the row.

See how to read a plant page.

The paths

What people mix up

• Living in the woodland with planting the woodland against the wall.
• Native with on-list.
• EMNRD’s mountain mahogany example with this site’s avoid banner on Cercocarpus montanus.
• Lab vs lists with this spacing sheet.
• Montana MontGuide thick-bark forest survivors with New Mexico’s no conifer in 30 feet.
• The one-fifth demonstration garden with full-scale 5 and 30 feet.
• CSU’s original with a New Mexico-only invention. The pamphlet says it borrowed.

How to check

1. Open the NMSU Los Alamos sheet. Read “no vegetation within 5’” and “no conifer trees within 30’.”
2. Open Fire Wise Plant Materials. Read “where and how.”
3. Search the plant list PDF for Pinus edulis and Juniperus.
4. Open Pinus edulis and Juniperus monosperma.
5. Open New Mexico plant evidence. Distribution is not the woodland.
6. Do not plant in Zone 0.

Limits

This page quotes the opened NMSU Los Alamos PDF, the opened EMNRD/NMSU Fire Wise Plant Materials PDF, and the opened WUI plant-list PDF. Piñon and juniper absence is from the complete extracted table, not a claim about a later edition. Juniperus monosperma is not on the New Mexico USDA list in this directory; this page does not invent the flag. 429 is a count of stored USDA-distribution rows as of this writing, not an EMNRD statistic. The Los Alamos demonstration is scaled to one-fifth. The Fire Wise pamphlet discloses a CSU source. Zone 0 is not a planting list.

Related records

• Pinus edulis
• Juniperus scopulorum
• Juniperus monosperma
• New Mexico plant evidence
• When the lab disagrees with the lists
• Glossary: Zone 0