We went out for lunch today. It’s usually a fairly pleasant quiet spot. But, for the last few months the Council has been ‘up-grading’ the area – and causing devastation!
The work is supposed to be finished by the end of November for a Grand-Reopening. We doubt that it will be finished in time…
While we were eating we were entertained by a group pf Council workers planting this enormous tree. It took some time, and at one point the crane nudged the top of the lamp-post.
Question for the gardeners on this site: just how stable will that great tree be with so few roots to keep it steady. We’re betting that within six months it will be dead.
Boadicea's Chariot 
There are roots, just very small. They grow quickly, though. I’m familiar with palm trees. They look nice, but are a bugger to pick up after. Lots of messes.
Hello Boadicea
I’ve seen this often recently, by both our council and private property developers.
I’m no gardener but I’d give the tree a great chance of survival. The people that move them are specialists, it isn’t cheap to go dig up a tree 10 or 15 miles away and transplant it.
My experience is that the tree takes a bit of time to reestablish itself, perhaps a year or more but after that no worries.
A couple of years ago one of my neighbours sold two of his three huge mature palm trees to a developer for almost $5000 each!
Wow what a great picture. Surely an entry in the photo competition?
Christopher – I reckon Palm trees are pretty boring – little more than green mops stuck upside down that only grow ever higher and make a mess… 🙂
Soutie – Apparently this one was dug up from a nearby park. I remember some years ago talking to a gardener about how little I liked Palm trees (we had ten or more fairly mature trees around the swimming pool) he reckoned I could get a lot of money for them if I wanted to sell them – but that it would make rather a mess of the garden. They stayed right where they were!
PG – I’m not sure what category I could put it under!
I love Palm trees – even after I’ve tidied up umpteen fallen leaves/branches/[whatever one calls them] from in and around the swimming pool. So there!! 😀
Mr Bear: they’re called fronds.
“Fronds, Romans, Countrymen … “
A frond in need…
Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.
Don’t forget, zenrules, that according to the EU drinking water may not stop dehydration!
Only if it’s not metered, Sheona!
They do that with olive trees here.
OZ
If it was dug up from a local park all a bit touch and go. A lot would depend, is it a windy area? Has it built in irrigation? Did it have supporting guy ropes after planting?
Generally these are grown by specialist nurseries, where there is a great deal of root pruning done which preserves a growing root ball intact which transplants just fine.
Frankly I don’t think these oafs know what they are doing, it should have been pruned and hessian wrapped on extraction from its growing site. Roots are by far more frail than any other part of the plant. Plastic should definitely not have been used.
I rather like the Norfolk Island Pine to the left.
An idiot neighbour planted a row of trees, at great cost. Told her not to, wrong time of year, wrong place etc etc. Every one died, slowly over the next year and she didn’t even have the sense to come and ask why. Fools and their money are soon parted! It has always been a mystery to me that people will not take proper advice and then go with it. Perhaps your Council has no trained horticulturist? I suppose they do not care if they waste your rates and taxes!
Christina
The tree was planted right next to the beach – you can see the sea in the background. It can get pretty windy there – it’s an extremely flat area and will definitely be under 30 foot of water when the oceans rise in the next few weeks after the AGWers’ predictions occur!
I don’t know if there is any irrigation – people tend to get very upset if they see their Councils watering plants when they have to watch their own gardens die – so I doubt that it will get more than rain.
I don’t know when it had any supports, we left before they had finished shovelling in dirt – I hope it has. If it toppled the wrong way there’ll be a lot of beach-side businesses claiming compensation. It definitely was not planted ‘straight’ – so it already leans to one side.
We’ll probably go back in a couple of weeks – so watch this space!
Doesn’t strike me that it has much of a chance!
Is water that short where you are? Or is it just that the authorities charge so much for it?
If I remember from my youf do you not have all your rain in one/two seasons? Do they have inadequate reservoirs?
Are you under permanent ban of hosepipe use?
What with all those rivers that flooded earlier and there can’t be that big a population it sounds as if the councils are singularly inept in their provision considering you have said in the past how high the taxes are.
Someone is making undue profit somewhere!!!
There is certainly no point in planting trees and then not watering them in until they have developed new root systems, a complete waste of money.
Wouldn’t suit me one bit would it? I just love my private well, leave the trickle hoses on permanently in the dry summer! That is how I establish my trees. I’ve lost count of how many I have planted here, must be well over a hundred by now. But I plant babies and stuff up to about 3′, you have to wait but they go away much better and quicker once they have their feet down
.
Come to think of it I have a tropical crinum in the greenhouse from Queensland that doesn’t like too much water, (seed liberated from Brum Botanic gardens), seed the side of an egg, the boy and I used to have competitions to see who could germinate liberated seeds the quickest and the best! We never nicked plants only seeds, far more difficult to germinate. All the girls there on the front desk knew and asked us how we were doing with various species! I do it to one of my garden clubs, issue seeds/bulbs etc and make them bring them back a year later! The prize is always a bottle of red wine! (Well it would have to be wouldn’t it?) It has become one of our annual giggles and general piss takes. Americans have to be taught how to laugh at themselves!
Oh well, I suppose I had better go and do something, need to do some prep cooking for thanksgiving.
I do know from my previous professional incarnation that a palm benefits from strong winds. When its roots are loosened it puts out more to secure itself and thus pulls up more moisture too. The result is a healthier, more productive tree.
OZ
There was a complete ban on using a hose to do anything water gardens / clean cars / wash down paths, etc for a number of years here in Queensland. One could use a bucket – but in practice that meant that most people let their gardens die.
Incidentally, they tried the same thing in Adelaide when we lived there – but so many elderly people were having to be treated for fractures because they refused to let their gardens wither that the ban was relaxed so that anyone over 60 could use a hose.
The dams are inadequate, and there was strong public antipathy to recycled water – so people just put up with in and cut back on their water usage. My daughter had an egg timer in her shower and got very cross if anyone took too long over showering… She tried it on us – once!
A couple of years ago the dams filled – and there was a public outcry when it transpired that the authorities were going to dump megalitres of water – and the watering restrictions were relaxed somewhat.
At the moment the dams are full – and we can do what we like for the next few days until they dump another few billions of litres of water – in case we get rains like last year.
What is really getting up my nose is that because people have learnt to live with less water, the water companies are not making sufficiently large profits and are, therefore, putting up the cost to line the pockets of the private owners who should never have been given control of essential services.
Thanks OZ!
OZ, your comment explains why palm trees take so well when transplanted. It has always surprised us.
Boadicea, I’m surprised we have to wait as long as a few weeks to be inundated. Daughter was in New York last Wednesday and it was raining very heavily. I realised this was the beginning of the “prophecy” coming true and was glad when she got out before the flood.
Sheona – I only know this because Samoa was hit by two mahoosive cyclones/hurricanes/typhoons (take your pick) in consecutive years back in the 90s. One year it went north-south and the second south-north, or vice-versa. Anyhoo, the result was bumber crops of coconuts in subsequent years because the surviving trees had been bent one way and then the other, had put down extra roots to secure themselves again and as a consequence were able to suck up more moisture and nutrients.
OZ