As a big fan of Myth Busters, and a one time visitor to the Bay area, I’m curious. There are lots of palm trees there. I live in NC. Our coast is a bit farther south than SF. We don’t have a many instances of palms even at the southern border, and none on the Outer Banks region. San Francisco’s climate is a good bit cooler than our coast, so, why the palm trees? Inquiring minds want to know.
Most of the palms in San Francisco are Canary Island palms, which are well-suited to cool Mediterranean climates.
As for why palms and not oaks or maples? They grow well with a minimum of tending, and unlike regular trees, they don’t dump piles of leaves for city workers to rake up at this time of year. Other pluses are that their fronds are above street signs, traffic lights and SF’s ubiquitous electric bus wires.
I just checked on Wunderground.com for seasonal averages for San Francisco and Wilmington. It looks like while Wilmington’s seasonal high temperatures are higher, its seasonal low temperatures are also significantly lower. That is, Wilmington’s average low temperature for January is 35F, San Francisco’s is 45F.
Which is NOT to say that SF is warm. One significant tourist industry is selling sweatshirts to people who spent $1000’s of dollars on airfare and hotel and didn’t spend 5 minutes checking the weather forecast.
You know, my parents grew up in SF, and I grew up on the peninsula, and I have always thought that the palm trees looked a little bit lost — as if they had taken a wrong turn somewhere. …That’s the tall skinny ones.
Now, the big thick barrel-trunked ones, they seem right at home with the tree ferns and (barren) banana trees. About a billion different creatures live in them. I love them.
I just wish some of the date palms would bear viable fruit. I would be in heaven!
Not that you asked, but LA’s palm trees are imported, too. Just for kicks, the ridiculously lush trees of Palm Drive in Palo Alto. They look better in person.
There’s a palm tree in the gardens of Dromoland Castle in County Claire, Ireland. I imagine it too, was imported.
Sorry. The most common palm tree variety that one sees in LA, *Washingtonia filifera *(California Fan Palm) are native to the area. These are the famous palms that one sees growing in Beverly Hills and elsewhere. There are other palms around like King, Queen, Canary Date and Pygmy Date and others that are not native, but the most common, CA Fan Palm, grows naturally in the southwestern US.
The palms in your photo Phoenix canariensis Canary Island Date Palm are not native.
There are some native trees, but weren’t the majority of the trees that are currently in Los Angeles (which are now rotting, growing diseases and dying) imported from South America in the 1930s or some such?
San Francisco is significantly cooler than the surrounding area, but it still doesn’t ever get too cold. It snowed a few years ago in the city for the first time since the 70s.
There are actually palms that will do pretty well in many parts of North Carolina as well as further north.
Two of the hardiest are Trachycarpus fortunei (windmill palm) and Rhapidophyllum hystrix (needle palm). Once established they’ll take considerable (even subzero) cold with minimal damage and actually do better in cooler than in hot tropical climates. These varieties might be amenable to growing in the San Francisco area.
An interesting phenomenon is that good summer heat generally aids hardiness - there are plants that will survive Midwestern winters but die out or do poorly in the Pacific Northwest even though winter lows are not as extreme.
I have a needle palm I started from seed several years ago and which I’m trying to overwinter outdoors for the first time, using heavy mulch and Freeze-Pruf (a protectant spray).
There are palm trees as far north as Victoria, BC, and the Gulf Islands. A friend’s prents have one in front of their cottage on Savary Island north of Vancouver.
The answer to “why palm trees?” is basically that somebody liked them, and they would survive here. The climate in most parts of the Bay Area will allow a wide range of landscape trees, although there’s a lot of variation in climate for such a small region.
I’m on the Peninsula, and both residential neighborhoods and commercial properties display a very strange mix of landscaping trees. Washingtonia palms and citrus trees occur in my neighborhood right next to spruce trees and paper birches, and I have a magnolia next to my driveway. Then there’s those ubiquitous eucalyptus trees which weren’t native.
The second most common palm here in southern CA is the Queen, Syagrus romanzoffiana. It is from Brazil, and some of them do have a virus, but the vast majority that I see around here are beautiful and are quite healthy.
Outside of the fact that you call yourself a Mean Old Lady, why do you hate palms so?
Hmm? I love palm trees. It’s just that I’ve lived in LA most of my life, and remember being taught that most of the palm trees in Los Angeles were imported decades ago. I also recall some dust up about the palms dying, and them being replaced by birch (? maybe some other kind) trees that provided more shade, and some other such. Even mean people think healthy palm trees are pretty. The ones I lived by in K-Town were kind of sketchy, but that whole neighborhood is a dive.
Maybe three or four years ago, I saw some new palm trees being planted along Hollywood Blvd. I wonder where those came from. Too lazy to find out.
Hmm? I love palm trees. It’s just that I’ve lived in LA most of my life, and remember being taught that most of the palm trees in Los Angeles were imported decades ago. I also recall some dust up about the palms dying, and them being replaced by birch (? maybe some other kind) trees that provided more shade, and some other such. Even mean people think healthy palm trees are pretty. The ones I lived by in K-Town were kind of sketchy, but that whole neighborhood is a dive.
Maybe three or four years ago, I saw some new palm trees being planted along Hollywood Blvd. I wonder where those came from. Too lazy to find out.
It’s cold to people who are expecting “Baywatch” weather - 80s and above, beautiful sunny beaches, etc. They show up for a nice warm stroll across the GG Bridge and are met with temps in the low 50s, fog and high winds. That guy selling cheap fleece pullovers for $40 out of his van suddenly gets a ton of business.