Too Much Water and a Windy Day

Italian cypress trees are planted all over Southern California. The yard next to my son's house is ringed by these massive 70 foot giants, just over his fence, lining the property next door.

You can see what a lot of water and Santa Ana winds can do.

L.A. had a wet start to winter, with a lot of rain early on. And then the winds came. The tall, tightly narrow cypress trees are particularly prone to breakage when that happens. They do better in a truly dry Mediterranean climate with little rainfall spread out over time.

This is just not pretty, and not really fixable.

Ever since the wind broke these water logged branches, fine sprays of needles have come pouring down on my son's patio every day. He is constantly sweeping up the fine debris from all those dying branches, but it it just reappears. 

When I was there visiting, the neighbor who owns all the trees came over and chatted. He said he has gotten quotes to take them all down - and his whole yard is ringed by dozens of them. It's a staggeringly huge project. He said the trees were 60 years old, far too immense for a small city yard, and far too many of them. And not only do the falling needles create a mess on my son's patio, but the neighbor has a pool and his pool is simply clogged with debris.

For all their messiness and ugly deterioration now, the trees have dominated the sky above my son's house on one side. When they all are taken down the sky will open up, the shade on that eastern side will be so much less, and the look of his whole yard will be completely different. 

And there are no trees in my son's yard. His place is beautifully landscaped but devoid of any trees, except for three small manzanitas on a terraced hillside in back.

They are limbed up and very pretty, and they look like trees in form, but are only about 10 feet tall. They are healthy looking, with nice green foliage and lily of the valley looking seed sprays. The red bark on their multi stem trunks is attractive.

When all the Italian cypresses come down, these little manzanitas will be the only tree structures around to look at. But they'll look so much nicer without the looming shaggy, broken cypresses towering over them.

Then the only real trees of stature and height to be seen from my son's yard will be the palms in the far distance, looking like something Dr. Seuss would have drawn.

Italian cypresses and even iconic palm trees are not native to California. But both have dominated the Southern California skyline for so many decades that they are now symbols of the state. 

Too much water and the famous Santa Ana winds did the cypresses in, and it will be strange to come back for a visit in the future and see the wall of immense green towers in the neighbor's yard totally gone.