To Palm or Not to Palm
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“Palms have a lot in common with the region’s people. They come from other places. They’re probably a more apt symbol of this self-invented place than anything else. Palms are a signature of this place, etched into the national psyche by countless California-centric movies and television shows. They have made themselves home here by capturing our imagination and transforming our mentality of place. They have also duped many of us into thinking their presence is a requirement.” - The LA Times
It’s no surprise that climate change is here and expressing itself in subtle and dramatic ways. This reality, and making sense of it, is the impetus that led me to landscape architecture — a practice with the scope and scale to apply toward designing and implementing solutions addressing climate change.
As a landscape architect in training, my challenge is to design what best serves my clients’ needs while simultaneously implementing design intent to improve the ecological value and quality of life for people connected to a site — both for today and tomorrow.
Moving from New Jersey and the East Coast to San Diego at the start of 2022, I am in the process of learning a whole new plant palette. Southern California natives, Mexicali varieties, East Coast deciduous, Mediterranean plants, South African, African, and Asian — the cliché that everything grows in Southern California, albeit water needs, is accurate; and the plant diversity in Southern California is staggeringly expansive.
Palm street trees in North Park, San Diego
Providing Ecological Value
But one tree dominates the landscape and our cultural identity in San Diego — the palm tree. Yes, there are thousands of palm tree varieties. And yes, many of these exotic monocots provide ecological value. So take that, palm haters!
But even still, palms are under attack by critics across the country. Many municipalities from Los Angeles to Miami are already banning the future planting of palm trees on their city streets. In Southern Florida, Palm Beach County is urging residents to plant more southern live oaks, a tree that provides far more shade and carbon capture capacity compared to palms. In Los Angeles, the alternatives are also oaks, along with sycamores, large deciduous trees, and ficuses, which can soak up sun and carbon and provide shade and cooling.
For trees to sequester a lot of carbon, they need to live long and healthy lives. For instance, the University of South Florida notes that live oaks can absorb and store 92 pounds of carbon a year with a mature tree’s canopy spanning more than 100 feet. That’s compared to less than one pound of carbon for a royal palm and its compact crown of 15 to 20 fronds. For comparison, burning one gallon of gasoline creates about 20 pounds of CO2, which means the average vehicle creates roughly 4+ metric tons of CO2 each year. For maximum carbon capture, we can look towards such species as the Empress Tree which captures about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre. But species like the Empress Tree are better equipped for carbon farming applications and less favorable as long living, shade producing, street trees. For street tree and carbon capture applications, species like the oak are currently the best bet.
The History of the Palm Tree
As a new resident to San Diego, I figured I should do some research to better understand the history of the palm tree and how it came to dominate San Diego streets and landscapes. The first ornamental palm tree was first planted in San Diego for ornamental purposes back in the 18th century by Spanish friars at the original church in Old Town. This Serra Palm became an icon on the hill and went on to live a long life up until the 1950s, captivating many generations with its exotic allure.
Since the original planting, the palm exploded into popularity through the 20th century, spurred by tourism and developers looking to sell the California dream to Americans and foreigners alike, branding the image of the California lifestyle for all to enjoy. In nearby Los Angeles, the 1932 Olympics spurred the planting of nearly 30,000 palms as part of a city-wide beautification project. The agenda of these projects had ripple effects felt in San Diego. Following World War II, many soldiers also returned from Hawaii to San Diego, bringing with them memories of a palm-laden landscape.
To this day, the palm tree endures as a symbol of “Vacation Land” and Southern California culture, creating a mirage of San Diego as a desert oasis rich with water. One expects to find a row of queen palm trees when you first exit the airport. We expect this tree to greet us as we drive downtown and off into the sunset to enjoy our time in San Diego. As James Ricci writes in They’re Not Natural, But What is in This Self-Invented Place?, “The palms are how we know the scene isn’t Chicago on a nice day.”
“Of the 2,600 species of palms in the world, the most commonly found in Southern California are the queen, the king, the pygmy date, the Mediterranean fan, the windmill, the Mexican blue fan, the Canary Island date, the Washingtonia robusta (also called the Mexican fan palm), and the Washingtonia filifera (sometimes called the American cotton or the California palm). Only the last is a native. All the others have been imposed on the botanically accommodating landscape.”
“The palm is basically an ice age leftover; when the climate was wetter, there were more palms” (Celia Kutcher). And when developers began flipping Southern California’s desert into development in the 20th century, the planting of palms convinced the eye that these lands had ample water to sustain a growing population. The connection to the Colorado River as the primary water source in San Diego in the 1940s following World War II only intensified the planting of palms on newly laid city blocks and streetscapes.
Sports Arena Target - Sunbelt Investments
The Shade Canopy
San Diego is also known for its weather. Peak tourism occurs in summer, when visitors from Arizona and hotter climates escape the heat for the cooler confines of San Diego. In San Diego, neighborhoods near the ocean experience cooler temperatures. The other major factor contributing to temperature cooling is shade canopy. So even if carbon capture is not your thing, tree canopy should be, as this design makes those hot summer days bearable. Collectively planting a shade canopy throughout San Diego could therefore help ensure a highly profitable tourism industry for the city decades down the road as increased cooling will lead to sustained tourism in the age of climate change.
The San Diego Union-Tribune says that we have to work as a city to achieve the level of shade trees required to become a “Tree Equity” city. This article points out we do not surpass the four million trees required to make our neighborhoods equitable in our distribution of shade canopy. If we achieve this canopy, we may see a future reduction in temperature over the greater city. Enough of a reduction may cause visitors to flock to our already cooler shores and neighborhoods for much needed relief.
Planting a dense shade canopy will also work to repair the damages done by redlining in San Diego. This same article points out that “sparse vegetation also bears a striking relationship to redlining — the discriminatory practice that for decades carved cities up into areas largely based on race and income, assigning higher values to white, affluent neighborhoods and denying mortgages and other services to minority neighborhoods.”
This same tree study found that San Diego is in the top 20 of these large areas that American Forests, a nonprofit conservation organization, says have the most to gain from planting trees — in all its communities but especially those significantly lacking trees. In addition to cooling streets, these trees will collectively help to reduce air emissions for residents.
But increasing shade takes time. American biologist Edward O. Wilson is famous for saying, “You plant a tree not for this generation, but for the next generation.” This line has never held more importance than it does today.
One thing that I’ve learned while living in San Diego for the last four months is that San Diegans have a very narrow range for comfortable temperatures in which they can operate. Anything below or above this temperature range can throw the average San Diegan off. There are not the extreme temperature changes out here that occur say, in the great state of New Jersey; and yet the palm still appears to be required planting throughout San Diego, despite it providing shade and cooling relief.
On a recent project tour at a new development installation east of downtown, I learned a developer with a tight budget felt the need to install 10 royal date palms around the site pool. Each of these palms was easily $50,000+ to install. Dropping half a million dollars on palm trees in this one area forced the developer to then save money elsewhere. Sizing down all of their other planting on the site and slashing plant quantities allowed the developer to maintain a project on budget.
But why were these palms required? Why do developers still demand these postcard images of vacationland even though these spaces cost so much and offer such low functionality in our heating climate? Are these palm trees a required incentive to sell apartments to a growing influx of young professionals who have relocated to San Diego in the post-pandemic work-from-home world? Or has the palm tree become so ingrained as the de facto tree for poolside and amenity areas that developers and designers fail to question whether this tree is still the appropriate and responsible choice for new projects?
In writing this article, I did so without a conclusion in mind, and I know some of you might be questioning the validity of my impartiality. I will admit that part of me wants to join the bandwagon and be an anti-palm enthusiast, but writing this piece has become an excuse to do a deep dive into the history of the palm in Southern California and San Diego. In doing so, I have a greater appreciation for palm trees, both as species and as a cultural representation of the people who call Southern California and San Diego home.
The city of San Diego currently proposes the use of the palm tree as primarily an accent tree because they do not provide significant shade. However, they can provide an almost architectural character to streets and skylines. As we work to re-envision and revise San Diego’s shifting streetscapes, neighborhoods, and landscapes, we see the shifting mentality to transition away from palm trees as required tree planting to accents in the landscape. In this way, the palm tree has come full circle from its original ornamental use in San Diego — a lone palm on the landscape for visitors to admire and remember.
Example of an Intermixed Shade Tree and Palm Canopy
Trees of Choice
Moving forward, we should ambitiously plant our streets and sites with shade trees. If the palm tree was the icon of California culture in the 20th century, what will be the icon of the 21st century? What will evolve as the new tree of choice that makes us believe that this place will support us, nurture us, and even make our dreams come true?
I see a diverse shade canopy of natives and non-natives providing relief from a broiling sun. I see these trees as being drought tolerant, carbon capturing, and providing grace to us — cooling us on the hottest days on a planet that we have collectively warmed to a sweltering degree.
This reality, and making sense of it, is an example of the design dilemmas that my colleagues and I consider on a daily basis at McCullough Landscape Architecture. As landscape architects, we shape how people perceive and relate to their environment. We also feel a responsibility to design for stewardship for each of our project sites.
While it is foolish to think that our firm alone can make any dent in the global formidable design challenge of climate change, we are playing our part. We are asking and wrestling with the difficult realities of what designing in our new climate looks like. Throughout our design process, we are internally asking the hard questions as well as the simpler ones like, "Should this tree be a palm?" Or, "Should we sneak in two extra shade trees and plant an accent palm for good measure?" Your call.
Andrew Schlesinger
Associate
Client of the Month:
Luminous Capital Management
Willow Creek, Carlsbad
McCullough is pleased to announce Luminous Capital Management as our April Client of the Month!
Luminous Capital Management is a relatively newly formed commercial real estate investment firm investing in the San Diego life science and R&D markets. It’s operated by three partners out of the Irvine area — Bob Dougherty, Matt Stephenson, and Tom Lam — who founded the firm in June 2021 with a goal of making and managing value-add real estate investments on behalf of institutional and high-net-worth investor clients. They saw an opportunity in San Diego to invest in expanding life science markets just beyond Torrey Pines, La Jolla, UTC, and Sorrento Valley. Rather than compete directly on properties against the national players, Luminous looks to purchase in neighborhoods such as Scripps Ranch and Carlsbad, as well as in the East Bay of San Francisco.
For their first two properties in these neighborhoods, one a former LG corporate R&D building and another a vacant Flex industrial building previously occupied by ViaSat now being repositioned for a major lifestyle brand headquartered in Carlsbad, McCullough was brought in at the onset to help the firm take aging R&D buildings and envision new possibilities. This Luminous approach aligns with McCullough as they look at their properties from a pragmatic angle. Rather than scrape and start from scratch, they believe that there is underlying value in existing structures and site elements. With a coming together of creative minds, new life can be brought back into these elements. The most sustainable approach to development is to work with and build upon what already exists. This is where our two firms come together in alignment. The challenge in San Diego, where the life science and tech markets are red-hot, is there are significant amounts of outside investments raising property values. With rising values, there is a propensity to start over and build the newest and latest. This propensity is very admittedly part of what makes San Diego a great place to live and work. San Diegans as a result are witnessing a kind of renaissance transformation of our built environment. However, this renaissance comes at an expense. Both environmentally and historically, more resources are needed to build new things, and old buildings often need to come down.
One of recent history’s most renowned urbanists, Jane Jacobs (American-Canadian journalist, author, theorist, and activist who influenced urban studies, sociology, and economics) once argued that great cities are not made up of the newest and latest architecture only. Jane’s primary sentiment was for urban diversity — diversity not just in the cultural sense, but diversity in land use, diversity in industry and economics, diversity in architectural style, and even diversity in historical evolution of place. This historical evolution of place is destroyed when the only approach to development is to demolish and start over.
This element of diversity in approach is what McCullough appreciates about Luminous. Their pragmatic system of investing in the older properties, surrounding neighborhoods, and bringing in creative minds to reimagine the possibilities is not only the most sustainable, but it also offers another level of diversity to our great community that in the long run will be very necessary to lead us to a vibrant future for our built environment.
McCullough, in our 23 years of business, has been proud to be a contributor to the design of many new communities, live and work environments, and the revitalization of what already exists. These, in our minds are all important to the built environment. Therefore, for their creative vision and diversity offered to our community, we wanted to recognize Luminous Capital Management as our Client of the Month. Thank you to Bob, Matt, and Tom for bringing us in as a design partner to see new life breathed into your investments here in San Diego.
David McCullough, ASLA, PLA
Principal
World Landscape Architecture Month – April 2022
April is World Landscape Architecture Month. Established by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), WLAM is a month-long international celebration of landscape architecture and designed public and private spaces. People and communities around the world have deep, long-standing personal connections to the spaces landscape architects create — they’re just not aware of it. During WLAM, ASLA and landscape architects around the world aim to demonstrate that connection by highlighting landscape-architect-designed spaces.
And, what better time to celebrate San Diego/Tijuana as the first bi-national region to be World Design Capital than the week of Earth Day?! Come celebrate both events at PechaKucha Night, April 21st at Bread & Salt, Barrio Logan.