Privet Sector

If they were to make a movie about the trees in the parking lot of the Ventura County Government Center, it might be called “Leafing Las Vegas.”

Twenty-eight of the lot’s Japanese privets--a tree the county had begun getting rid of years ago--will grace the grounds of the Bellagio resort, a new luxury hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

To the surprise of county officials, casino designers view the Government Center parking lot as a kind of mother lode of Japanese privets; many of its 140 trees might be bound for two other hotels under construction in Las Vegas.

The 20-year-old trees have become a nuisance for those tending the center’s parking areas. The roots lift patches of asphalt. Tiny black berries drop onto cars, baking into the finish under the summer sun.

But none of that mattered to planners of the $1.4-billion Bellagio. They roamed the West for more than a year, seeking mature Japanese privets--one of the few evergreens that can withstand withering desert heat. Berries could be hosed away, they reasoned; roots could be tamed with high-tech barriers.

In the vast Government Center parking lot, their dreams were realized.

“We came and inspected them and said, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ ” said Barbara Brinkerhoff, a landscape architect and co-owner of Lifescapes International of Newport Beach.

Some of the trees, especially those near the courthouse and jail, had been carved with gang graffiti, declarations of love and obscenities. Brinkerhoff passed on those--”They’re not right for a five-star, first-class hotel”--but she did choose one to honor the mother of Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas mogul behind Bellagio.

It says: Mom.

In return for its privets, the county will get replacement trees that don’t tear up the lot or rain sticky berries.

For three weeks, a crew from an Orange County company called Tree Relocation Experts has been excavating the 7-ton trees, building boxes of Douglas fir around the huge clumps of dirt encasing their roots. Wrapped in black shrouds, the trees are winched onto flatbed trucks, which can take just two at a time on the 341-mile drive to Las Vegas. Uprooting should be completed in March.

“We’ve got a 98% survival rate,” said Darrell Simpson, Tree Relocation’s owner.

Las Vegas is a short hike compared to the 17-year-old firm’s next project. Simpson said his crews are on the verge of carting 300 cypresses from various spots in Southern California to a site in Saudi Arabia.

Traveling at night to avoid overheating the privets, drivers head for the site of the former Dunes hotel. On 122 acres, Steve Wynn’s Mirage Resorts is modeling its lavish new hotel and casino after the mountain village Bellagio, which overlooks Italy’s Lake Como.

The trees from Ventura County will line a meandering walkway beside Bellagio’s nine-acre lake, an oasis that will feature fountains and a water ballet several times daily.

In the county parking lot, the low-hanging 20-foot-tall privets will be replaced with either crape myrtle or Brisbane box trees.

The path from parking lot planter to Vegas show tree started with a phone call to county officials from Ventura County nursery owner Richard Baron.

About five years ago, the county had contracted with Baron Bros. Nursery to get rid of its more troublesome privets, known in the trade as ligustrum lucidum. However, budget cuts aborted the campaign after 15 to 20 trees.

In the meantime, the Barons had tapped into the Las Vegas construction boom, using nurseries in Camarillo and Somis to grow greenery for casinos. After sending 68 stately Italian cypresses to Bellagio, they were called by Mirage’s landscape architects during the privet search--made all the more frantic when another source dried up.

“We came up with a way the hotel could get their trees and the Government Center could get their privets replaced, plus the curbing around them,” Baron said. “It became a win-win situation for everyone involved.”

As replacements, the county would get whatever trees it chose, although younger and shorter than the privets. In addition, Baron Bros. would pay to replace damaged asphalt, rebuild curbs and truck the trees to Las Vegas. In the end, the county wouldn’t spend a dime.

The offer proved irresistible.

“We got lots of complaints about those trees,” said Phillip Hammond, the county’s grounds manager. “When you have employees parking under them day after day, there are problems.”

But just as appealing to some, gnarled calluses have formed on trees bashed over the years by county employees who were late for work or attorneys who were rushing to court.

“That gives them a lot of character,” Baron said.

Ambience doesn’t come cheap, however: For uprooting, transportation and all the rest of it, Mirage will pay about $6,750 for each tree, Brinkerhoff said. She said replanting them at Bellagio will cost about $2,500 a tree.