Los Angeles' legendary palm trees are dying and few will be replaced

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Los Angeles' legendary palm trees are dying – and few will be replaced

A beetle and a fungus are killing off the trees that have become synonymous with the city, making way for trees that give more shade and use less water

Rory Carroll in Los Angeles
Friday 29 September 2017 19.15 BST

They are the sultry, swaying backdrop to countless films, posters and music videos, an effective way to announce: this is Los Angeles.

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.

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Authorities will instead plant other species that give more shade and consume less water ...

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/29/los-angeles-palm-trees-dying

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. I love them, I love LA.

[Hortensis]

3. Me too, even if we moved away. As aliens go I prefer palms to eucalyptus

and am sorry they're part of the massive die-off that's occurring. It seems Australia's eucalyptus are more resilient. I don't hate them (especially the wonderfully fragrant ones), but I disliked their visual dominance in the country especially. Well, any vegetation that can survive the die-off should be treasured. That said, the native oaks, which grow very, very old, are the tree I'd once hoped would someday once again mean California to those who love it.

[stopwastingmymoney]

7. I agree about the oaks

I'm in No Ca and our oak trees are so beautiful. They're also in the logo of our local college and many businesses.

[brush]

2. Those trees also require tremendous maintenance costs.

They have to be trimmed every year which means man hours and trucks with high booms to get up there to trim the dead fronds.

There's a development across the street from mine in Vegas and they're putting in palm trees all around the perimeter.

They are incurring a huge, yearly expense for the HOA/homeowners. Too bad.

Not worth it.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Love our Palms.

Aware of the water consumption,but,they reduce the Ambient air temps in July and August by 10 degrees with their shade effect. BTW,we still are keeping our Green Grass just because of the Air Temp and does reduce our A/C costs .



Palms do take a ton of water but the alternative is not in the book.

[brush]

6. Shade? From palm trees?

[Hortensis]

10. Lol. Two stocky ones came with our old-MH-on-marsh in Florida, and in that hot a

climate ANY shade can be of real value. In winter their heads block the late morning sun into our sun room and actually make a difference, for a while anyway. When the sun clears them, we leave for the shady patio, or wherever, and come back in the afternoon.

[Wellstone ruled]

11. Yes,it is all about how one

places them in the Landscape. And how they cast their shade on the roof at critical times of day.

[stopwastingmymoney]

8. I always laugh a little when I see

those perfectly groomed palm trees in movies. They almost never look that way in real life.

[brush]

9. My neighbor behind me has several palms in his backyard. Every year he waits until the dead fronds..

hanging down begin falling over the fence into my yard before he calls in the gardeners to get up on taller and taller ladders every year to trim them.

Soon they'll have to bring in one of those expensive pieces of equipment with a high boom to get a worker up there to trim them.

I sit in my backyard with a glass of wine and smile while I watch them, thankful that my wife and I planted evergreens and flowering trees in our yard.

I rake up some leaves in the fall — no cost, and that's it.

[dhill926]

5. For me, palm trees are among the most beautiful...

and soothing things on the planet.