Throwing Shade is a series of conversations from The Show about why shade is such a precious resource here in the Valley and why it’s so hard to create it.
When you think of the landscape of Phoenix, you might think first of cactuses, mountains and probably palm trees.
The spindly fronds are not native to the Sonoran desert, but they have become a signature part of our region’s flora — a symbol of the resort-town paradise the Valley has billed itself as for generations. But they aren’t native to the Sonoran Desert.
In fact, the very first palm tree in Phoenix goes back to 1879 and a man known as Alexander Lemon, one of the first attorneys in Maricopa County. He took a trip to the Sandwich Islands — aka Hawaii — and brought back some seeds for palm trees.
A friend of his, Clara Evans, planted one of them in her front yard on Monroe Street, and the exotic tree that grew from it became a local attraction. Phoenix’s official historian, Steve Schumacher, talked about it in a video from the city.
“She was always on the list of things to see and take a photograph of was this original palm tree in her yard,” said Schumacher.
Pretty soon, having palm trees on your property became a sign of prominence.
But it’s getting hotter in the Valley of the Sun, and palm trees don’t provide much when it comes to one, all-important thing we need as the temperatures rise: shade.
In fact, they also suck up water and light up like a matchstick in a fire.
As part of the summer series Throwing Shade, The Show wondered — why does metro Phoenix have so many? And, is it time to plant something else?
Turns out LA Times columnist Patt Morrison was wondering the same thing in her city.
Full conversation
PATT MORRISON: The palm tree is a freeloader. It looks great, but it sucks down water and it doesn’t give us any more shade than the circumference of a hula hoop. It’s aging out, it’s expensive to replace. So it’s time to bid a frond farewell to the palm tree.
LAUREN GILGER: So you’re right, you’re right. This is not a tree that provides a lot of shade. It’s not a tree that’s native to Los Angeles either. Give us a little bit of that history. When did it show up there?
MORRISON: There are palm trees out in the desert that are native, but the palm tree itself showed up in Los Angeles with the missionaries who came here in the 18th century, and they needed palms for their religious ceremonies. And then everybody decided, well, if California is the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Eden must have had palm trees.
Therefore, we have to have palm trees. And they just were installed everywhere, because they signified class, they signified the exotic. You could not be really Southern California without a palm tree in your yard.
Phoenix Public Library/Susan Arreola Postcards Collection
Post cards depicting palm trees in the early days of Phoenix.
GILGER: Right. It’s become so emblematic with that part of the country — as it is here in Phoenix. But can you imagine Hollywood without palm trees? What would that be like?
MORRISON: Well, this is the problem. What do we have besides palm trees to symbolize what we are here in Southern California? And I’m sure there are listeners who have some ideas that aren’t very flattering, but we do have a Hollywood sign. But Los Angeles in Southern California is so much more than Hollywood. So if we were to get rid of the palm tree, we might be bereft of that symbol. That’s a concern.
GILGER: So, there is this cultural aspect of this. You wrote this column arguing that it’s time to say goodbye to the palm tree, though. What kind of reaction did you get? Like, did you get a lot of people angrily saying, you can’t do that, this is Southern California.
MORRISON: I was surprised at how many other people hate the idea of the palm tree as this omnipresent Angelino-defining tree. It’s a mess to clean up. It’s dangerous in a high wind, because those palm fronds start whirling around like some deadly device in a James Bond movie. They’re essentially like Airbnbs for rats.
And on the other hand, I did get people who were very romantically attached to palm trees and said, you know, “We really need them, because when we look out our windows, when we drive down the road, we see a palm tree and we think, ahh, Southern California is paradise.” So, it was pretty split, but I was surprised by the number of palm-tree haters.
GILGER: You’re not the only one. OK, so what would take the place of this? You’re looking at the kind of mismatched and garbled kind of tree canopy of LA, which I would say is probably pretty similar to here in Phoenix. Most trees planted in Phoenix also are not native to the area. What kind of trees do you think would serve that area better in the future?
MORRISON: We really suffer from an abundance of trees, because as people move to California from the East Coast, the Midwest, or other parts of the world, they brought with them seedlings and cuttings and seeds themselves. And found that the soil here is very rich. If there’s enough water, you put it in the ground, it’s going to grow.
So, we have a world’s worth of tree varieties here. I said that Los Angeles, in a way, is like a tree zoo, but we have to turn ourselves into a tree arc and start making some selections about what can make the cut — literally — and what can’t. We have native trees, which have, of course, flourished here for hundreds and hundreds of years.
And then there are some trees that don’t need too much water, that don’t make too much mess, that can give us the shade canopy that we as a city really need as we’re trying to approach solutions to climate change. So there are some ficus trees. There are beautiful trees. The one that I favor at this point is the jacaranda, which is not native, but it blooms with these beautiful ultraviolet blooms every year.
So, we have to be very careful about what we end up choosing — both to put in new trees and to replace them. As we approach the World Cup and the Olympics and the world is going to be looking again at Southern California.
Phoenix Public Library/Susan Arreola Postcards Collection
Post cards depicting palm trees in the early days of Phoenix.
GILGER: You talked to someone from this group, Tree People, who said this great phrase I want to ask you about: “Trees are critical infrastructure.” What did he mean by that?
MORRISON: What he meant was that you really can’t have a functioning city like Los Angeles without healthy trees. If you’re going to take care of anything in your garden, make sure it’s the trees. Because not only do they provide this tremendous shade canopy — which will help us fend off heat on worse days and fend off climate change — but they also provide the kind of ecosystem that everything needs here, starting with the smallest animals and insects, all up to those of us who walk on two legs and breathe sometimes clean air.
GILGER: So, looking forward at a Los Angeles where, in your mind, there should not be so many palm trees, do you think this is how the city should prepare — and many cities should prepare for the future … as we adapt to climate change?
MORRISON: We really have to expand our imaginations when it comes to replacing the palm tree. We don’t need a single iconic tree. What we need are working trees. Trees that use water sparingly and give us back at least as much energy and water as they take in. There are native oaks, for example, and then some sycamores, some black walnut trees.
As I sit in my garden in Los Angeles, I look out at these black walnut trees, beautiful protected trees. We have non-native trees that are beautiful and drought tolerant, like the African sumac and the Chinese pistache. So we really need to put together a menagerie of trees — as if we were putting together a menagerie in a zoo — to get a bit of this and a bit of that so that they can all combine and work together synergistically to give us the kind of city.
And the cities have to be aboard. Phoenix has to be able to say, “Well, if you’re going to cut something down, just plant something else in its place. Anything will do.” We have to do better than that. We have to have a master plan for planting, just as we have master plans for so many other things in our cities.
GILGER: So, if a city like Phoenix assesses its palm trees and whether or not they should be here in the future, if we’re looking for something to replace that with, something iconic, do you think it should be the saguaro cactus?
MORRISON: I don’t know that Phoenix has a very good claim on the saguaro, and I’m being a little sarcastic here. I have family in Phoenix and in Tucson, and this can be a sore point. I may not be welcome at Thanksgiving if I’m going to be actually frank about it. But I’m on Team Tucson when it comes to the saguaros.
I think the Sonoran Desert pretty much ends, let’s say, at Picacho Peak. So the desert of the saguaro really belongs to Tucson. So, sorry, Phoenix. I’m afraid you’re gonna have to come up with something else. It may have to be the shade of Camelback Mountain that does it for you.
GILGER: Maybe we’ll settle for something else.
KJZZ’s The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ’s programming is the audio record.
-
The peafowl in the city of Glendale are running afoul of their human neighbors. Earlier this week, the city began taking steps to tackle the huge flock of peacocks roaming parts of Glendale.
-
Earlier this week, residents of Phoenix’s Willo neighborhood gathered to oppose a law that could destroy historic homes and allow duplexes, triplexes and townhomes to be built in their place.
-
Phoenix’s historic preservation plan is getting a bit of a refresh. The city approved its original one a decade ago, so officials figured it was time to take another look at it — including where preservation in Phoenix has been, where it is, and where folks want it to go.
-
Jeremy Duda is a native Arizonan, self-proclaimed history nerd and reporter for Axios Phoenix. He created the ultimate bracket and reveals the winner.
-
William Holly is an historian of the American West and specializes in the San Francisco Peaks and Flagstaff. He wrote “The Mountain is Part of Us: Tourism, Community, and American Indian Sacred Land in Northern Arizona since 1969.”
Load More