• Story alerts   • Letter to Editor   • Pin it  — Wait six
months. That's the message native vegetation experts seek to
convey to backcountry landowners itching to replant and reseed
the scorched shrubs and wildflowers and cut down the blackened
trees on their properties. "That vegetation is going to grow
back," says Vincent Lazaneo, horticulture advisor with the
University of California Cooperative Extension. "There is no
question that it is going to occur. It's just a matter of time
what type of vegetation and how fast."  Sally Snipes understands
the urge to do something about the dreary black landscape. In
August of 2002, the Pines fire blew through the property she
inhabits in the San Felipe Valley below the north slope of
Volcan Mountain. "It was just toast," she says of the 69 acres
studded with live oaks and sumacs next to San Felipe creek. "I
was in a funk for six months because of the black. Everything
was black."  The shrubs that didn't burn on Snipes's property
were reduced to scorched sticks. Thir