"When she got started, these were political positions. To not water your lawn was a political position, just as when people didn't eat meat. You were taking a stand."
While Russell lobbied for a city recycling program and fought a South Los Angeles incinerator, among other things, she also decided it was critical that her work be her home.
"I had to embody what I wanted to convey because that's the only place from which you can have moral authority," she said.
Added Collings: "She wants her entire life to be consistent in every way."
And that, Arkin said, made her all the more inspiring.
"When people would experience that sense of wonder she had around the compost or growing her vegetables, they would want to do that too. It felt so good," Arkin said.
Russell, 74, has silver hair that is simply but elegantly styled, and she speaks in the slow, clear cadence of someone who has explained her life and her decisions countless times. Her clothing suggests a bit of Earth mother: blue cotton turtleneck under a flowered jumper and black cardigan; sturdy shoes and socks.
An East Coast native, Russell felt she'd landed in paradise when she arrived, at age 30, in Los Angeles with her husband, who had been hired to write for The Monkees television show. Their divorce was in some ways a midwife to Eco-Home, and Russell credits her former husband as its father because he gave her the financial support to find and follow her course in life.
Around the time that Russell and her two sons moved into the house that became Eco-Home, she started learning about the environment, particularly about where Los Angeles got its water and how much of it went to lawns.
At the time, Russell was a beginner and not all that interested in gardening. ("I grew up with a Victorian garden. That was not an experience to inspire me to garden," she said. "I had to weed it.")
But she took a class in native plants and looked at abandoned lots to see what was growing without attention. She subscribed to Mother Earth News and Organic Gardening. She joined the National Resources Defense Council. She concluded that most of "our environmental problems stem from our modern urban lifestyle."
Sustainable has become ubiquitous enough that its meaning can be obscured. But Russell knew what she meant, even if she didn't realize all it would take, and certainly not all that it would lead to.
