She Uses Frondly Persuasion : Palm Lady Cultivates Political Support for Her Favorite Tree

Pure and simple, Theresa Yianilos has a passion for palms.

Let’s begin at home. Her sprawling, tile-roofed house in La Jolla is surrounded by a forest of the trees, some squatting close to the ground, others arching toward the sky, more than 1,000 individuals and 50 species spread over not quite 2 acres.

It doesn’t stop there. Yianilos has made something of a name for herself through the politics of palms. For more than a decade, this smiling grandmother with the cheery twinkle in her blue eyes has battled like a Bengal tiger to save palm trees throughout San Diego County that are threatened by the ax.

There was the time back in 1978 when Yianilos took on the San Diego Unified Port District over scores of palms that were felled along the bayfront. Or the time she helped preserve 40 trees that were to be removed at the Chula Vista Civic Center. Or the time she hit the headlines with revelations of an SDG&E; warehouse that had become a clandestine palm tree burial ground.

Along the way, Yianilos has picked up a fitting nickname: the Palm Tree Lady.

Here is a woman who takes palms very seriously. But why the adoration for these leggy tropical flora?

For Yianilos, the palm tree is the very emblem for the land she loves, an enduring symbol of the sunny climes of Southern California, more particularly the village of La Jolla.

“For me, when I see a palm tree, it makes me feel that I’m living in the best possible world,” she said. “I’ve been all over the world, but to me there’s no better place to live than La Jolla. . . . And palm trees are part of that reason.”

Yianilos’ penchant for palms began when she was a girl in Upstate New York reading stories of the tropics, a land of unfettered romance far from the chilly terrain of her neighborhood.

But her first live palm tree didn’t come along until she took a trip with her husband, Spero, to Florida from their home in Buffalo in the late 1940s. While visiting the historic house of inventor Thomas Edison, the couple met a caretaker who took a liking to them. He gave them a couple of small palms to head home with.

Soon they had built a solarium and filled it with palm trees and other tropical plants, a little jungle that was decidedly unique among the often-frozen landscape of Buffalo.

But the couple’s horticultural hobby really began

to take root after Theresa insisted that the family move to the West Coast more than three decades ago to escape the cold.

They began growing all sorts of palms around the house, which sits on a hillside shelf with a commanding view of the Pacific. Spero, in particular, took on the task of caring for the trees. In the years since, he has become an acknowledged expert on palms, propagating seedlings and hybridizing new stock.

Theresa, meanwhile, steered more toward the political front. Back in the 1960s and ‘70s, she began to note a shift among landscape designers away from the use of palms. Time and again, she would learn of perfectly healthy palm trees being uprooted to make way for some more trendy tree.

“When I came here and observed palm trees being cut down, I was absolutely appalled,” she said. “Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I had to do something. I didn’t move all the way from Buffalo to have someone destroy palm trees in front of my own eyes.”

Her first fight came in La Jolla in about 1975, when a village beautification committee proposed felling a row of palms along a major avenue to make way for a flock of melaleucas. Yianilos gathered a cadre of palm experts and protested the idea. Their efforts paid off. The proposal was altered to allow the planting of melaleucas only in spots not already occupied by palms.

Other victories soon followed, most notably during Yianilos’ drawn-out battle with the Port District over palm trees on parcels it owns along the bayfront. After the district chopped down dozens of mature palms, Yianilos protested to the California Coastal Commission, arguing that the subtropical character of San Diego was being undermined by the action. In 1978, the commission agreed, ordering the district to plant replacements.

Ire of the Port Director

Fresh from that victory, Yianilos helped convince the commission a few weeks later to reject a Port District plan to uproot more than 100 palms on Shelter Island to make way for nearly 700 other trees as part of a major re-landscaping project.

Her efforts on behalf of palm trees earned the ire of Port Director Don Nay, who said in a 1978 interview with The Times that he felt “plagued” by the Palm Tree Lady.

“She’s all for palms, and that’s fine,” Nay said. “But some people collect stamps, and that doesn’t mean everyone else has to genuflect in front of them.”

In recent years, the fights have been fewer and farther between. Of late, the landscape design community is looking more favorably on palm trees, Yianilos said, making her crusade far easier.

“Palm trees are back in vogue,” she said. “I think it’s a cycle, like long dresses and short dresses.”

If there is one sore point for Yianilos, it is in her hometown of La Jolla. Though she has won some battles there, numerous palms have been felled by private developers, she said.

Especially galling for her was a decision by the San Diego City Council last year to make the jacaranda, not the palm, the official tree for two heavily traveled commercial thoroughfares, Pearl Street and La Jolla Boulevard.

Yianilos fought the proposal to the end and now has vowed to battle on until the decision is rescinded, even if it means taking to the streets with a petition drive. She worries that the council’s action could be misinterpreted and have a domino effect, with private builders on other streets “thinking La Jolla wants jacarandas everywhere.”

Larry Keller, a member of the La Jolla Community Planning Assn. and chairman of the subcommittee that made initial suggestions to the council on the issue, said the jacaranda was selected simply because it is a fuller tree that would soften the barren image of the two streets.

Keller also said he resented the “personal attacks” Yianilos launched against him and other members of the subcommittee in her zeal to defeat the jacaranda proposal.

Yianilos makes no apologies, however, referring to Keller and others on the subcommittee as “anti-palm.” Indeed, in her lexicon, people fall into one of two camps, either pro-palm or anti-palm.

Keller, however, insists he and the others are bullish on palms, noting that they supported the trees for other streets in La Jolla.

‘Anti-Palm’ Feelings Denied

Jay Wharton, president of the La Jolla Community Planning Assn., said he knows of no “anti-palm feeling in La Jolla,” noting that numerous full-grown palms have been planted recently or are planned in front of several projects. Yianilos will have more palms than she could shake a frond at if the trend continues as expected, Wharton added.

Nonetheless, Yianilos said she feels a need to press forward for palms.

“I shall continue my crusade,” she said. “I shall continue to fight for La Jolla. But I feel that as long as these anti-palm forces are involved, it will be an uphill battle.”

Yianilos hardly seems the type to deliver such fighting words. A plump woman just a couple of inches more than 5 feet tall, she has the look of a favorite aunt, with a ubiquitous smile and a whimsical laugh.

Palms aren’t her sole passion. She has written a definitive book on Greek cooking, and is an accomplished artisan, producing tile murals from the five kilns that fill a room on the edge of the family’s house. In 1985, she won an award of merit from the Ceramic Tile and Marble Institute of San Diego.

Together with Spero, her husband of 44 years, she has raised three children, now grown, and co-written a book on plants. When the couple first arrived in La Jolla, they ran a toy store that featured a cornucopia of items imported from Europe and elsewhere.

The Look of a Nursery

Now retired, they spend much of their time at their Spanish-style home, a singular place designed by noted architect Cliff May, with an expansive inner courtyard surrounding a massive olive tree.

Spero tends to the palms he grows in several greenhouses erected on the property. He also is a co-founder of the San Diego County Flower and Plant Auction, a Carlsbad-based facility that serves as a clearing house for local flower growers.

Though the Yianilos homestead has the look of a nursery, the operation is decidedly non-commercial. Spero said he mostly gives away plants, though he will sell a few. The family has donated palms to the San Diego Zoo, Quail Botanical Gardens in Encinitas and other spots.

At their home, palms are everywhere. A row of king and queen palms line the driveway up to the house, while feathery kentias (Theresa’s favorite) are scattered about. Rhapis palms fill one whole greenhouse. Groves of banana, mango, macadamia and mulberry trees flank the other boundaries of the property.

“Spero’s latest passion is bamboo,” Theresa said, pointing to a thicket while leading a tour of the property.

Will she ever get tired of her crusade for palms?

“I will not stop the fight,” she said. “I will win a few and lose a few. But I will fight as long as I am able.”