While reading your editorial sadly remarking on the loss of mature trees in South Florida, I can’t help but think of my little miracle here in Royal Oak Hills in eastern Boca Raton. Although this old neighborhood still has many splendid Florida oaks, they are simply dying of old age.
Primarily, they are dying of fungus that slowly hollows out their insides and is easily spread when the trees have rotted and are cut down.
The biggest problem, as I see it, is that people here rarely plant new ones. They do plant plenty of trees, but many are exotics that may or may not survive South Florida’s idiosyncrasies.
So, 10, maybe 15 years ago, after I had to cut down (or nature would blow down) my magnificent but greatly weakened oak, I was surprised to see about a year later, two new shoots growing in the same spot where the old one had been.
I picked the big brother and made it clear to my gardeners that if a blade ever touched it, I would be very unhappy with the offender.
That little shoot is now an absolutely gorgeous sturdy oak.
Regular trimming keeps the ever-extending branches off my roof and power lines and cuts out dead, crisscrossed branches, all according to the Beautification Committee of Boca Raton’s guidelines.
From my front porch, I watch the resident cardinal couple and mockingbird pair enjoy my tree’s airy foliage. Squirrels scurry up and down the trunk and below, my azalea bushes flourish more each spring as the great tree’s shade encourages flowers to bloom in profusion.
Amazing how nature will replenish itself, if we just let it do its own thing.
— Betsy Ratner Hershman
Boca Raton
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