Scary: Red Palm Weevil found in Southern California

[Thomas J. Johnson]

A Red Palm Weevil has been found in Laguna Beach, of all places… this pest could have davistating effects on the Date Palms of Southern California. It has already wreaked havoc in the middle east and apparently it can attack other species of palm as well. Doesn’t look good… I hope things don’t go the way of American Elms (East Coast) and Lodge Pole Pines (CO/WY)

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/10/palm-trees-insect-pest-red-weevil-california-laguna-cdfa.html

Since the design side of our business has dried up, from an optimists / opportunists perspective, there is probably a lot of money to be made defending and monitoring California’s existing Date Palms from these new pests. Who wants to start a business…?

It also looks like their larvae are propagated and eaten (by humans) in Indonesia. Maybe we could start a restaurant too… trap ’em, then cook ’em. Win-win. Who’s in?

                     Cute Little Buggers

              HAPPY ————— SAD

[Trace One]

Wow! Nutria from the Southeast sprinkled with toasted red palm beetles.. Just in time for Turkey day!

Thank you – I was unaware of this infestation..

[Boilerplater]

Actually this might be a boon for the nursery industry as it replaces all those killed palms! Add in a few giant wildfires, and you could have the landscape industry of SoCal back in good shape!

See also “Disaster Capitalism”

[Thomas J. Johnson]

Yeah, I’ve never really cared for palms, especially the Mexican Fan Palms. I’d prefer to see California move towards a more appropriate aesthetic for the region.

[Boilerplater]

But Mex fans are native, aren’t they? That might’ve been on the Cali LA test.

[Trace One]

Arrgh! Sore topic with me! Mex fan palms are close to the native, I forget the exact designation for the native palms, BUT – these things grow in OASIS of water, not lining the streets or highways, which are best described as arroyos, rather than OASIS.
I have been thinking of this conceptual conflict recently – do you want to plant native plants, or do you want to determine what kind of landscape, within the native range, you need to design for..Shopping Malls are NOT oasis’ …Your mall may used to be a nice valley oak and grasses steppe formation, but the hydrology, once it has been transformed, is NOT that of an oak grasslands – it is usually a floodplain type hydrology, or in the west floodplains are called arroyos..Extremely dry and occaisionally flooded.. NOT an Oasis!

I think this is a fundamental confusion in planting with native plants..The landscape palette you need to find is not just what used to be there, but what humans have made it, and then try to work with that, in the native palette..NO MEX FAN Palms!!! Only if you are ostentatiously and consciously wasting water and making your shopping center idiom the oasis, taking from everything around it for itself only..

New (remembered from UPenn, actually) thinking path for me, open to argument on that issue..

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