Jeanette Marantos, L.A. Times vegetation reporter, dies at 70

Jeanette Marantos, a stalwart Features reporter for the Los Angeles Times, died Saturday following an emergency coronary heart problem. She was 70.

Marantos was key to the success of The Times’ vegetation protection, making waterwise native vegetation a cornerstone of her reporting as drought and local weather change worsened in California. She spotlighted folks turning their yards into native plant oases and beautifying public areas. She additionally wrote about folks saving native wildlife, from mountain lions in want of a freeway crossing to endangered butterflies and tiny native bees. Her final project Friday was overlaying the California Native Plant Society’s convention in Riverside.

“She was the most loving person I ever met, probably to a fault in some cases. If she knew you and you were a part of her life, she was fiercely loyal always,” mentioned her son, Sascha Smith.

His brother, Dimitri Smith, echoed his sentiment, recalling when he was at school that his mom would supply rides residence to different college students once they didn’t have one. “Above all else, she was genuinely the most caring person I’ve ever met in my life,” Dimitri Smith mentioned.

Marantos, who was born on March 13, 1955, grew up in Riverside and remembered her mother and father doting on their 3,000-square-foot garden. As California’s water disaster worsened, recalling the fixed swish of sprinklers all through her childhood piqued her curiosity in native vegetation.

“That was the California landscape of my youth. In retrospect, it feels like a pipe dream, given the reality of this region’s limited water and propensity for drought … a lovely memory that is no longer sustainable today,” she wrote.

Marantos additionally lined the consequences of final 12 months’s L.A. County wildfires on soil and gardens, the destiny of Altadena’s Christmas Tree Lane after the Eaton hearth, the development of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, a venture that kicked off with a hyperlocal nursery, how L.A. gardeners have been reacting to immigration raids, and the rise of human composting. Known formally as pure natural discount, Marantos’ stays will bear this course of to turn into soil, her sons mentioned.

Jeanette Marantos seems on the L.A. Times Plants sales space on the paper’s Festival of Books on April 21, 2024.

(Maryanne Pittman)

In her position at work, she wrote the beloved L.A. Times Plants publication, her newest specializing in the resiliency of vegetation in burn areas. She additionally launched the favored L.A. Times Plants sales space on the paper’s Festival of Books, working with the Theodore Payne Foundation, a nonprofit schooling heart and nursery targeted on native vegetation, and the California Native Plant Society to teach guests about native vegetation. She drove the initiative to offer away sunflower seed packets finally 12 months’s sales space as a result of the sturdy vegetation are recognized to extract lead, an concept that got here to her as she examined contaminated soil in burn zones.

She “was a one-of-a-kind voice for plants and the people who care about them. Through her writing, she imbued others with her infectious enthusiasm for the natural world — a gift to all of us that will continue to resonate,” in response to a press release from the Theodore Payne Foundation. “Her visits to the nursery, her thoughtful conversations, and her wholehearted engagement brought laughter and insight into every interaction.”

Marantos was a devoted reporter — she’d drive 60 miles to get a solution when nobody was choosing up the telephone — but in addition dedicated to her household. She cared for her husband, Steven B. Smith, who was identified with Alzheimer’s illness in 2011 and died in 2021, offering readers with suggestions from their experiences. She spoke usually of her sons and grandchildren and her canines. She opened her December Plants publication, a couple of mother-son duo’s seed bomb venture, by sharing that she had not too long ago welcomed one other “perfect” granddaughter.

“Plus I got to listen to my other perfect granddaughter read her first book and help her plant her first sunflower,” she wrote.

Sascha Smith recalled one of many final issues Marantos mentioned earlier than going into emergency surgical procedure Friday was sorry to his daughter Naomi, 6, for lacking her birthday Sunday.

Gardens stuffed with buckwheat, sage, greens, roses and treasured candy peas encompass her Ventura residence. Her father, an Air Force veteran and son of Greek immigrants, launched her to “the miracle of seeds” and to the scrumptious fragrance of candy peas. She remembered trailing behind her grandmother reducing roses in her backyard, lugging bucketfuls of flowers and inhaling the sweetness. She added native vegetation to her backyard as a result of sure, they helped save water, butterflies and bees, but in addition as a result of she cherished their perfume.

“These lean, scrappy plants are rarely as showy as their ornamental cousins, but when it comes to fragrance, they win every award, hands down,” she wrote.

It wasn’t simply aesthetics and aroma that impressed Marantos to backyard. It was the acts of digging, weeding, watching one thing develop and sharing the abundance with others. “On my worst days, my garden was a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and the one thing that made me smile,” she wrote.

Jeanette Marantos seems on “Los Angeles Times Today” in June 2024 with host Lisa McRee.

(L.A. Times Today)

Marantos tended to her backyard like she tended to her associates. She usually introduced her associates alongside on reporting journeys, from mountain climbing up Los Angeles’ steepest staircases and visiting wildflower viewing areas to convincing one who flew in to Los Angeles from Washington state to spend a weekend volunteering at The Times’ Plants sales space on the Festival of Books.

Marantos lived in central Washington for greater than 20 years, working as a reporter on the Wenatchee World Newspaper and as a instructor at Wenatchee High School. She additionally labored for a program targeted on getting at-risk center college youth into faculty. “So many students … the trajectory of their lives is very different because she believed in them,” Dimitri Smith mentioned.

Working as a neighborhood volunteer, she was additionally integral in creating a sculpture backyard in downtown Wenatchee, Dimitri Smith mentioned. “Growing up, I didn’t know how special that was. I didn’t know how unique that was. She wanted to be engaged in the community and make a difference always,” he mentioned.

Marantos wrote private finance tales for The Times from 1999 to 2002. She moved from Washington again to Southern California in her 50s to restart her journalism profession, at one level interning with KPCC, now referred to as LAist, Dimitri Smith mentioned. In 2015, she returned to The Times to write down for the Homicide Report. A 12 months later she began contributing to the Saturday part’s gardening protection, which she would work on full time in 2020 when it relaunched as L.A. Times Plants. She described the 2 disparate beats as a approach of staying balanced, her yin and yang.

Jeanette Marantos, proven round 1975, tries to develop her first backyard.

(Steven B. Smith)

“Going from homicide to gardening might seem unusual, or maybe even a step away from the action. But not for Jeanette. First off, she personally loved gardening. … So the assignment was kinda like telling a kid to cover the candy beat,” mentioned Rene Lynch, a former Times editor who employed Marantos on the vegetation beat. “But also, Jeanette was a true journalist, which means she had an innate curiosity about everything.”

Learning to backyard took dedication. Marantos described her first try in her 20s as disastrous; her tomato vegetation grew extra leaves than fruit, her sunflowers have been unhappy, not hearty. She considered her explainers on numerous plant subjects as her ongoing schooling.

“Our family is completely grief-stricken and shocked over her loss. We’re going to have a very, very difficult time living without her,” mentioned her brother, Tom Marantos.

She is survived by her son Sascha Smith and his daughter Naomi Smith; son Dimitri Smith, his spouse Molly Smith and their daughter Charlie Smith; her brother Tom Marantos and his companion Rafael Lopez; her sisters Lisa and Alexis Marantos; and her greatest associates, who have been like household, Leslie Marshall and Theresa Samuelsen.

Marantos’ household asks that donations in her honor be made to the Theodore Payne Foundation and Beauty of Bronze, a program she based in Wenatchee that introduces elementary college students to sculpting. Donations to Theodore Payne will be made online or by way of examine payable to the Theodore Payne Foundation at 10459 Tuxford St., Sun Valley, CA 91352. Donations to Beauty of Bronze will be made online or by examine payable to Community Foundation of North Central Washington, Beauty of Bronze at 9 South Wenatchee Ave., Wenatchee, WA 98801.