Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Trees

If I want shade, I park in the ramp

Most malls around here have them.

Mary Anne makes a good point about the hazards of half-assed landscape architecture. I bought the house I'm in from the guy I was renting it from, and I had nothing to say about the landscaping. The idiot who did the job paid little or no attention to what the plants would do when they grew up. I've already had to have three threatening trees removed over the years. Most of my front yard by the driveway is a Darwinian festival of battling ground covers and shrubs. I have no idea what might live in there.

California live oaks are not normally planted by landscapers here, but development often takes place around trees already in place. Well-meaning landscapers plant grass around them and install irrigation pipes (EVERYBODY has underground sprinkling here.) Unfortunately, the live oak is a native of this area, which would be dry as hell without artificial irrigation, and the water rots the roots out. Then they tip over. And they are BIG.

Then there's the eucalyptus tree, which apparently was imported by someone with as little sense as the French asshole who decided California needed a native population of edible snails. The trees shed bark, leaves, nuts and whatever like nobody's business, they burn in fires like they have been soaked in kerosene, and they have a shallow root system that inspires them to fall on houses in a light wind like Aussie drop-bears. They smell good though.

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