Out on a Limb : Mistakes Are Forcing Cities to Cut Down Many Trees in Their Prime

Armed with a chain saw, shredding machine and death warrant, a Ventura city work crew showed up at the Stoults’ house recently and turned the curbside ficus tree into sawdust ‘n’ chips.

The towering tree was removed to free the sewer line from pythonesque roots that had persisted in backing up the Stoults’ plumbing, even after being assaulted by $2,200 worth of Roto-Rooting.

Looking out their living-room window when the demolition was finished, Paul and Betty Stoult were saddened to see a hole in the view. The city-owned tree--planted by the Public Works Department about 25 years ago--was a stately specimen and one of the main reasons that the retired couple bought the house in April.

Nobody ever told them that root problems had caused the demise of similar trees up and down the street, they said. But while Paul is philosophical about the loss of his neighborhood’s urban forest--calling it “one of those unlucky things that happen between a sewer and a tree,” Betty is alarmed.

“If they take all the beautiful trees down, this neighborhood will be a mess,” said Betty, 73. “Why couldn’t they have planted a tree without big roots?”

They did. It’s just that trees have this annoying habit of growing .

Once planted in the ground, a sapling that began life in a five-gallon container will develop a root system that mirrors its branch structure. The Stoults’ tree, an Indian laurel, had a 40-foot-wide crown and flying-buttress roots that extended far into the earth. It should have been given plenty of space, but the city stuck it in the four-foot parkway between the front curb and the sidewalk, directly above the Stoults’ sewer line, a mistake that inevitably doomed the tree and cost the Stoults their curb appeal, not to mention $2,200.

“Why’d they plant a tree like that over a sewer in the first place?” Betty Stoult wondered.

Why, indeed?

It wouldn’t be going out on a limb to say that every city in the county has had a knack “for putting ridiculous trees in ridiculous places,” said Jim Downer, a horticulturist at the University of California Cooperative Extension in Ventura.

Over the past half-century, thousands of city-planted trees have been cut down in their prime because they became intrusive, bothersome or a potential insurance liability, experts say. In Thousand Oaks, scores of Monterey pines that could not handle the arid climate were weakened by disease, attacked by pine bark beetles and taken out by the city. Simi Valley had to whack hundreds of ash trees because they damaged sidewalks. In Ventura, dozens of Indian laurels have been removed, mostly because of sewer problems.

The mistakes made 20 or 30 years ago are costing us now. Aside from affecting the resale value of a house, the removal of a large tree also depletes city coffers. The job can cost a city as much as $1,000 per tree, not counting sidewalk repair, said Dan Condon, city arborist in Santa Barbara.

Poor planning long ago is also causing cities to spend extra money today to keep problem trees from growing out of control or becoming dangerous. A city spends about $200 to prune a large tree, Condon said.

In Port Hueneme, the ubiquitous coral tree has grown into a maintenance nightmare. Camarillo, Oxnard and Santa Paula, like Ventura, are having problems with Indian laurels needing an inordinate amount of attention to prevent them from clogging sewers, buckling sidewalks and overrunning neighborhoods.

To avoid destroying a tree, city crews--along with private companies--sometimes sever main roots to save a sidewalk, or they might top an unruly crown. But radical pruning mutilates a tree and often leads to its premature death, horticulturists say.

Problem trees, it seems, can be found throughout the region.

“There’s hardly a tree species in Southern California that hasn’t been removed for heaving walks or causing problems with sewer lines,” said Alden Kelley, a Fullerton arborist who champions the cause of threatened trees.

Like many residents, the trees that populate our streets and medians are probably from somewhere else. When the first Europeans journeyed across the county a few centuries ago, they saw a landscape blanketed by coastal and valley live oak--the Conejo Valley was a solid oak woodland--as well as sycamore and alder, but they didn’t see Indian laurel, palm, eucalyptus, Monterey pine, pepper, coral, ash or any of the dozens of other foreign species now growing in our soil.

Ranching took a toll on native trees earlier this century--untold numbers were removed to open up land for cattle grazing--and thousands of oaks and sycamores were intentionally destroyed after World War II to make room for developments during the housing boom. In their place, cities planted fast-growing imports to fill in the barren scenery and provide homeowners with immediate gratification. Fed by garden sprinklers, a tree such as a eucalyptus could double in size in a year, creating a pleasing look but a potential hazard.

“You take a eucalyptus tree that can survive in impossible drought conditions and put it on a residential street and give it a lot of water, it literally turns into a giant weed,” said John Sevier, a San Diego eucalyptus expert. “Unless you’re prepared to do a lot of maintenance on a regular basis, you have a time bomb on your hands--your tree can blow over in a big wind or drop branches.”

Decades ago, cities usually selected a tree based on its availability, without doing much research, if any. Not every tree would turn into a boondoggle, “but it’s always risky to use new plant material because you don’t always know what the future holds,” said Jerry Revard, longtime arborist for the city of Ventura. “You take a plant from another part of the world and introduce it into our climate and soil, and the result is unpredictable. What’s not a problem there could be a problem here.”

No other tree is as troublesome as the Indian laurel, “our No. 1 concrete buster,” Revard said. Native to India, the tree is one of 350 species of ficus, or fig tree. Size-wise, it is not quite in the same league as its cousin, the giant Moreton Bay fig (see related story), but it comes close. Left unchecked on city parkways, a mature Indian laurel will blot out the sun with a 100-foot-wide canopy. If it avoids the executioner’s chain saw, it can live more than 100 years.

Indian laurels should be trimmed every two or three years to keep them from erupting into giant specimens.

“If you don’t keep Indian laurels sheared, they grow to their natural size, and that is huge,” said Santa Paula Public Works Director Norman Wilkinson, who blames “budget constraints” for hindering his city’s ability to keep its Indian laurels from running wild.

The Indian laurel was introduced into Ventura in the late ‘60s, “touted as a very good replacement for the citrus-tree look,” Revard said. With smooth gray bark and a tangle of thigh-size limbs spiraling upward into a dark cloud of shiny oblong leaves, the tree stands as proud as any oak or maple in a picturesque Midwestern town.

Unlike an oak or maple, however, the Indian laurel doesn’t shed all its leaves in the fall--it sheds them year-round, creating a perpetual autumn in front of your house.

Margaret Lynote lives on a Ventura street lined with mature Indian laurels, their gangly branches embracing rooftops. Almost every day if the wind is blowing, she has to rake the blizzard of leaves blown into her yard from Indian laurels across the street. Lynote, who has owned a home on this street for 25 years, rejoices during Santa Anas, which reverse the flow of leaves, sending hers tumbling into neighbors’ yards.

“Right now, this side of the street is getting a break, but when the wind changes, we’ll be getting everybody’s leaves,” she said. “Keeping the yard cleared sure is a full-time job.”

Along her street, unraked leaves turn brown and brittle, crunching beneath tires and shoes. Light rain doesn’t penetrate the canopy, but a downpour will wash the leaves clean and saturate the leaf dust on the ground, creating something akin to wet sawdust that invariably gets tracked into the house.

But as maddening as the leaves are, it’s the berries that can make a homeowner crazy. Once or twice a year, the pea-size berries will dribble much as faucet drips, day and night for a few weeks, mounding at the curb and peppering front lawns.

To June and Greg Gonzales, who own a duplex a few houses down from Lynote, the onslaught is oppressive.

“Besides needing constant sweeping, those berries ruin the grass and are a pain to clean off your car,” Greg Gonzales said.

Although residents are unable to get the city to trim the overgrown trees--it will be four years in August since they were last trimmed, according to the city--they still have an abiding affection for the Indian laurels. “They sell the houses here,” Lynote said. “Without them, this street would be nothing.”

The Indian laurel is Santa Paula’s signature tree, but it’s on the verge of annihilation. In the late 1960s, 140 were planted along Main Street and other downtown streets. Liking the look, scores of homeowners planted their own laurels. But when the trees were about 12 years old, they underwent a sudden growth spurt, becoming overpowering and overbearing. Shop owners complain that branches camouflage store signs and that berries are tracked in by customers.

“They are messy, destructive, overgrown and, in general, highly unsatisfactory street trees,” Wilkinson told the Santa Paula City Council two years ago.

Last year, after the city spent $21,000 to trim the trees, Wilkinson issued an ultimatum: If the trees continue to grow wild, they will be converted to firewood and mulch. “Nobody wants to see the trees go,” he said. “They’re a major part of downtown. But if they continue to be a nuisance, we won’t be able to live with them.”

Port Hueneme, however, has to live with its problem tree. About 15 years ago, the city decided that it needed a “theme tree” and planted 163 Kaffirboom coral trees on street corners and medians. A spectacular tree with orange-colored flowers, the corals turned out to be fast-growers with brittle limbs and large root systems.

“The trees were planted before anybody knew they’d be a problem,” said Ken Cuilty, the city’s landscape maintenance manager. “They’re a really, really high-maintenance tree and are hard on curbs and sidewalks like the Indian laurel.”

But the city is stuck with them. “We’re too far along to change now,” he said.

City arborists are always on the lookout for the perfect street tree. Current favorites around the county are the Canary Island pine, queen palm, New Zealand Christmas tree, Victorian box and Chinese pistache.

But the rule of thumb, said Ventura’s Revard: “There is no such thing as the perfect tree. They all have advantages and disadvantages.”

Kelley, the Fullerton arborist, hopes that today’s tree crop fares better than yesterday’s.

“Trees have been misused out of ignorance, stupidity and greed,” Kelley said. “Considering the stress we put trees under, it’s a marvel we have any left on the planet.”

Jeff Meyers has a love-hate relationship with the Indian laurel in front of his house.

Santa Paula Tree Is as Big as They Come

There may be a taller pine or a sycamore with longer limbs somewhere in the county, but no tree is bigger than Santa Paula’s Moreton Bay fig tree.

The 115-year-old specimen stands 85 feet tall, has a 131-foot-wide canopy and a trunk with a 9-foot diameter.

Running a close second is Ventura’s 120-year-old Moreton Bay fig at 73 1/2 feet tall and 139 feet wide with an 8-foot, 8-inch trunk.

While the county has these two elephantine trees to brag about, Santa Barbara has the mother of all Moreton Bay figs. Although only a mere 76 feet tall, the 114-year-old tree has a 172-foot-wide canopy and a trunk with a 12 1/2-foot diameter.

One Way to Clear the Line and Save a Tree

Tree roots don’t breach sealed sewer lines, but old terra-cotta lines often develop leaks that roots zero in on like heat-seeking missiles.

Once a tree finds a leaky line, it sends hair-like roots into the tiniest opening. Soon, life erupts inside the pipe.

When McRooter’s Mike Wilsey examined the four-inch clay line that had been invaded by Paul and Betty Stoults’ Indian laurel, he found “a whole tree system in there, roots the size of my thumb and four or five feet long.”

The tree was removed so that Wilsey could safely excavate beneath it to install a new sewer line. The Stoults say neither the city nor the plumber gave them an option to save the tree.

Horticulturists, however, say techniques are available that might have solved or avoided the Stoults’ problem without destroying the tree.

Since 1931, for instance, the town of Ridgewood, N. J., has successfully kept sewer lines from clogging with copper-sulfite flushes twice a year. The chemical kills the roots inside the sewer line but doesn’t harm the tree.

Wilsey is spending $20,000 for a Hydro Jet machine that blasts invasive roots with water delivered at 4,000 pounds of pressure per square foot. He hopes that the spray will wipe out stubborn roots better than blades.

But plumbers say neither chemicals nor high-tech Roto-Rooters are always effective solutions once the roots inside the pipe are allowed to get too large. Then the tree usually has to go.

“I think trees are beautiful,” Wilsey said. “It’s a shame to take them down.”