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Tall palms look nice, but ...

They're not overly shady and are susceptible to fungi. Still, Dunedin's Washington palms are there to stay, the city says.

By SHEELA RAMAN
Published January 8, 2007

The palms of Dunedin, 354 of them soaring 90 feet over Edgewater Drive - are like your grandmother's fainting couch. Charming. Classic. Elegant. But, you know, kind of a pain in the neck to keep around for all these decades.

Do palms have a passe problem?

Since the 1920s, the lofty species has lined Edgewater Drive, luring visitors with visions of tropical glamor and the good life.

And the palms are here to stay, even as they fade from other urban landscapes, according to city arborist Alan Mayberry.

"I'm really not a fan of them," Mayberry said. "But the premium for residents is the view."

Los Angeles city leaders have decided to slowly phase out palms because they cost too much, provide little shade, and scatter their bulky fronds in windy weather. They have also been increasingly plagued with deadly fungi.

Dunedin's palms are not immune to these issues, but they are too much of a local fixture to get rid of, Mayberry said.

"It's the classic, Southern palm-lined boulevard," said city commissioner Deborah Kynes, who lives near Edgewater Drive. "They're not going to go away because we don't want them to."

The 354 palms along Edgewater Drive belong to the Washingtonia robusta species, and are commonly known as Washington palms. They are long and lean, reaching up to 90 feet, and their fronds form flat crowns: They are the iconic palm that most people recognize.

A problem with the Washington palm is that it is a native of Mexico, not Florida, Mayberry said. Also known as Mexican fan palms, they are used to drier heat, and in Florida are more susceptible to the fatal fungi - fuserium wilt, gliocladium blight, and ganoderma - that plague palms.

Ganoderma has seriously threatened the palms along the Memorial Causeway in Clearwater in recent years, said Mayberry, who served as Clearwater's arborist for almost 30 years before coming to Dunedin nine months ago. But for the most part, he said Dunedin's palms have stayed sturdy.

"A lot of them are just so old that they've adapted to the climate," he said. "Pretty much the only thing that threatens them now is lightning strikes. That's their No. 1 nemesis when they get older." About a half-dozen of the road's palms are damaged by lightning every year, he said.

About 80 percent of the palms along Edgewater Drive are the same trees that were originally planted in the 1920s. But last year, the city replaced 50 damaged palms using a $35,000 grant from the Florida Department of Transportation. The city also spent $4,302 on palm pruning last year, but Mayberry said this figure will go up in future years because the newly planted palms require more pruning than the older ones.

"You see, even if you don't like palms you have to become a palm fanatic in Florida," said Mayberry, who has also worked as a palm pruner. "At least in my line of work."

Mayberry's main complaint about palms echoes the concerns of his counterparts in Los Angeles: Palms are purely an aesthetic.

"In our business we try to fight deforestation," he said. "And palms don't provide enough canopy density to send nutrients and oxygen back into the atmosphere."

In fact, he said, palms aren't even trees. They belong to the grass family, and have barks made of fiber instead of wood.

If he had to choose a palm to plant, he said it would be the sable palm, which is native to Florida. They're superior, he said, because they have more foliage, require less maintenance, and are adapted to local wildlife.

In Los Angeles, city leaders have decided to replace Washington palms with sycamores, oaks, and other, leafier, native species.

But Mayberry knows that in Dunedin, a battle against Washington palms is one he will never win.

"They're just a landmark," said Vivian Grant, 93, who grew up along Edgewater Drive and remembers when the oldest palms were only 3 feet tall.

"That kind of vista is a rarity these days," said City Commissioner Kynes. "And if neighbors have to pitch in to keep them around, we will."

[Last modified January 7, 2007, 22:32:54]