ICONS

Forget the BMW; get a built-in alarm for your palm trees. Palm crime sprees--homeowners wake up to find a hole where a stately palm once stood--regularly hit suburban communities such as Yorba Linda and Garden Grove. Sago palms, which have shallow roots, are favorite marks.

And if thieves don’t get your palms, a palm broker just might. Local entrepreneurs have been canvassing neighborhoods--mostly in San Diego and Orange County--and offering to dig up palms that have grown too big for a homeowner’s garden. The homeowner may or may not appreciate the tree’s value, but the broker does; a mature tree of a relatively common species can fetch $5,000 or more depending on its height, and some exotic palms are considered priceless. And landscapers’ appetite for mature palms is insatiable.

As palm cultivation becomes more sophisticated, species are beginning to pop up in places as untropical as Vancouver. Still, Southern Californians need not be concerned about other communities usurping their urban motif. When the city of St. George, Utah, began planting thousands of trees and billing itself as “the other Palm Springs,” experts were called to clean up the carnage following each winter’s severe frost.