Los Angeles' legendary palm trees are dying – and few will be replaced (global warming, heating)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Palm trees greet you outside the LAX airport, they line Hollywood Boulevard, stand guard over the Pacific and crisscross neighbourhoods poor and rich, a botanical army of stems and fronds which symbolise the world’s entertainment capital.
Apparently not for much longer. LA’s palm trees are dying. And most won’t be replaced.
A beetle known as the South American palm weevil and a fungus called Fusarium are killing palm trees across southern California. Others are dying of old age. “It’ll change the overall aesthetic because palm trees are so distinctive. It’s the look and feel of Los Angeles,” said Carol Bornstein, director of the nature gardens at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.
A city tally in 1990 estimated the number of palms on city streets at 75,000, a number which has not been updated but is destined to plunge in coming decades, the Los Angeles Times reported this week, citing officials.
No one knows how many will die, or how fast. For palm lovers, the even worse news is that they won’t be replaced, perhaps not even mourned.
Authorities will instead plant other species that give more shade and consume less water – important factors for an overheating city. By the middle of the century, LA is expected to be three to five degrees fahrenheit warmer and to have triple the number of extreme heat days. Los Angeles' legendary palm trees are dying – and few will be replaced - Guardian
Did you even read the excerpt you posted? There's nothing sad about it. It says the city is replacing the dying palms with trees that provide more shade and need less water, both positives.
While there will be less palms doesn't mean there won't be any. If you go to LA and Southern California, you will see lots and lots of palms. Even if most of the public ones are gone, there are still many left on private property.
Did you even read the excerpt you posted? There's nothing sad about it. It says the city is replacing the dying palms with trees that provide more shade and need less water, both positives.
While there will be less palms doesn't mean there won't be any. If you go to LA and Southern California, you will see lots and lots of palms. Even if most of the public ones are gone, there are still many left on private property.
The Palm Trees were iconic, so it is sad and whilst there may still be some palms but most of the 75,000 palm trees will not be replaced.
I do however welcome the new trees, but it is sad that trees are dying due to beetles and fungus.
The palm trees in South Florida are going through the same thing. In fact, there was this huge orange groves situated in The Acreage, a rural suburb in West Palm Beach, called Anthony Groves. Well, his citrus trees got infected with canker, and the county came in a told him he had to remove the trees, and once canker is designated in an area, you can't plant another tree for 100 years. So then he tried growing palm trees, and those too succumbed to disease and bugs. In the end, he sold his land to a Canadian developer, called Minto West, and they plan to build a 3500-6500 family gated community.
I have my palms and they are healthy. The city may be replacing them but people that live in the area still have them in the yards of their own homes.
What is sad is people that actually believe in global warming. I was born in Oxnard, California a city that is 50 miles North West of Los Angeles on the coast. I am 52 years old and I can tell you that cycles happen. When we were kids we would see amazing bugs both flying and on the ground. It has been years since many of these bugs have been around. I remember as a kid my parents bought ducks on the advice of our next door neighbor. The ducks would eat the snails and slugs and other bugs that were on the ground or that they could catch.
Here we are seeing things that we have not seen in years and people are thinking that this is happening because of global warming, like it is a bad thing. Reality is that the Earth is always fluctuating and in reality is in a cooling mode. The polar ice caps are thicker now than they have been in years.
I for one don't want to see any palm trees die, especially my palm trees. I love them. Our front yard alone has 10 palm trees. They are mostly Pygmy date palms that only get between 8 and 15 feet tall. Two others will eventually get to about 25 feet tall. Taller palms would not go with our small home.
The palms aren't native to LA. They were planted there as a marketing ploy. Replacing them with shade trees sounds like a great solution!
I wonder if people's backyard palms can be saved simply by watering them. Where I live, there were bark beetles causing swaths of pine or juniper trees to die. I hired a tree guy to check my trees out, to see if they were threatened. He said most were ok, but a couple of them already had beetle infestations. But he said they were such beautiful trees (I didn't notice anything exceptional, but he was a tree freak), I should try to save them by watering them, which would give them strength to fight off the pests. So I got a root feeder, to send water directly to the roots. This saves water; 5 minutes per tree, and they're good. This worked spectacularly! The trees did survive, so I expanded my watering program to all the trees. No bark beetle issues, no trees drying out. Happy trees!
I wonder if people's backyard palms can be saved simply by watering them.
I read that people will still be able to maintain and plant palms anew on private property, it is just the city of LAs arbor division won't be dealing with palms anymore. So the palm lined streets will change, but people can keep their own going with watering and pesticides, etc.
Those very tall leggy ones in LA I think are ugly.
Those are old too.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
