Related: Lantana: Tales from a Tree City
Related: Delray Beach: Fight to preserve massive banyan at golf course pits city against drainage district
Palms reign in South Florida, a visible reminder to so many northern transplants that we’re not in Kansas anymore (or New York, or Massachusetts, or … ).
We may grumble about traffic and never-ending construction — not to mention the stifling heat that comes with our extended summers — but right now our address is paradise: a tropical oasis with balmy temperatures and sun-splashed beaches, and a backdrop of stately palms most anywhere you turn your gaze.
But South Florida needs more trees, and our fixation on palms isn’t helping. Tree City USA — and botanists — don’t even consider palms to be trees. And palms don’t add much to the shade canopy that’s needed for heat reduction and for capturing carbon emissions.
That’s why it’s important to protect decades-old trees of great stature, replace them with a similarly sized arbor canopy when we can’t, and add more shade trees wherever possible.
More large trees seem to disappear every day. A massive oak two doors down from my Boca Raton home was there when I left for work a few days ago but gone when I returned that night — it appears its roots had become a threat to my neighbor’s sewer line.
On Hypoluxo Island in Lantana, concern is growing that too many of its mature trees are being uprooted to fit the design plans of new construction, with developers treating the fines or fees merely as a cost of doing business.
In Delray Beach, the Lake Worth Drainage District is forcing the city to cut down a massive banyan rooted in a canal bank at the city’s golf course. The city has objected, but the district has been unwavering, concerned that the tree could fall into the canal in a hurricane and lead to flooding in nearby communities.
In Boca Raton, three century-old banyans were recently cut down to make way for a 12-story apartment complex, but only after the developer had arborists show proof that while the trees were big and beautiful, they were also diseased and a danger.
There are tree preservation efforts, some more popular than others.
Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach and Lantana hold Tree City USA status and have for decades. They’re developing policies, such as tree giveaways, to promote a larger tree canopy in their communities.
Elsewhere, Ocean Ridge stopped short of joining Tree City USA in 2022, but it has regulations on the books regarding tree removals. And the state has allowed Gulf Stream to preserve the invasive Australian pines that provide a unique canopy over the town’s stretch of State Road A1A.
The downtown campus proposal Boca Raton voters will decide March 10 would preserve a half-dozen large banyan trees near City Hall — not that they’re under any threat now — if voters approve a denser development on the other side of Northwest Second Avenue.
While I’ve never considered myself a tree hugger, my wife and I try to do our part. Though we have close to 20 palms on our less-than-quarter-acre lot, we have some older trees and have made room for new ones.
Two 70-plus-year-old oaks cover our front yard — no threat to any pipes yet — along with a relative newbie, a 5-year-old pink showers tree we hope will have its first bloom this spring.
We also have an eclectic mix of 10 other trees, including a royal poinciana that covers a large part of our backyard.
When they developed our 65-year-old neighborhood, they planned around our oaks and dozens of others in the community. We can use more developments sticking to that ideology today.
It would also be great if more homeowners planted trees of their own, ones that add to the region’s canopy and not only to its tropical feel.
— Larry Barszewski, editor
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