A Callery Pear Tree Recovered After 9/11 Takes Center Stage at Memorial Site

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Garden Clippings usually appears on Tuesday on Studio City Patch, but today Marla Hart has a special tribute appropriate for today.)

We moved to the Valley in May 2001 and rented a house in Sherman Oaks. I was sure the tree in the backyard was dead, but the landlord assured me it hadn’t yet re-leafed.  By May? Still, hope springs eternal.

Through the summer, streets grew hot with a fresh layer of blacktop. Night smelled like tar. We endured unsupervised teenage parties across the treeless street and an endless stream of real estate agents who trumpeted “Now is the time to BUY.”

As for that crepe myrtle in the backyard? Dead.

The morning of Sept. 11, my husband was on the phone interviewing a theater director who put him on “hold.” She apologized, mentioning her friends from New York kept calling about the “attacks.” What attacks? We turned on the TV and watched the carnage.

Ten years later, the burned stump of a Callery pear tree found in the rubble near the Twin Towers has been nursed back to health and now flourishes  in a place of honor at downtown Manhattan’s 9/11 memorial park. The site where the towers once stood also hosts 225 newly planted White Swamp Oak trees, thousands of granite cobblestones and two massive waterfalls.

Celebrating rebirth through the glorious infusion of green, living things, New Yorkers instinctively grasp what Los Angeles’ ruling elite fail to appreciate. Trees matter.

Los Angeles is bested by two-thirds of the nation’s major cities when it comes to green space. This town’s pro-concrete bias was established 80 years ago when landscape architect Frederick Olmsted, famed for designing Manhattan’s Central Park, University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University, championed a plan for tree-lined parkland paths that would stretch from the Pacific to the mountains.  Chamber of Commerce power brokers promptly squashed Olmsted’s proposal.

These days, a few hardy arborists defy the city’s longstanding “who cares?” mentality. Every time I see a herd of planting fresh saplings in Colfax Meadows parkways, it reminds me that every tree counts. 

I planted a young Blue Spruce in front of my Chicago home. I left before it reached maturity. However, my brother and his wife pass by the tree everyday. They send me pictures. Dogs pee on it. Birds hide out there in winter. It’s pretty damn majestic.

In honor of  New York City’s scrappy pear-bearing hero, these are a few of my favorite trees:

Crepe Myrtles (Lagerstroemia):  Hot pink, purple, blush, magenta and white blossoms show up everywhere this time of year on beautiful pale, curvy barks. Flowers have a long bloom time in SoCal and favor full, uninterrupted sunlight. Remove suckers and buds of new branches as they appear on the "trunk."

Lavender-blue blooms usually bust out in late May. This year’s plentiful winter rains have extended the Jacaranda’s peak period into an . Gilded by an ornamental fern-like leaf structure, the mature tree provides much-needed Valley shade. Flowers are followed by woody seed pods.

Olive: Pale silvery green oblong leaves do not provide a great amount of shade but remain sturdy amid drought, disease and fire.

Pine: Nature’s proletariat, pines thrive nearly anywhere, from Siberia to Studio City. Some sprout spontaneously after forest fires.  Fragrant pine needles serve for butterflies and moths, while birds and squirrels feast on the seeds.  Pines adapt to all soils.

Sycamore: Run, don’t walk, to Cantura Street to savor the charm of these stalwart deciduous beauties.  (Don’t dally: the trees have been getting cut down, see story by.)

Japanese Maple: Not native but a beautiful focal point in burnt red to any landscape. This Maple variant boasts a lovely branch formation, but be  careful where you plant them: Japaenese Maples hate direct sun.

Silk Floss Tree (Ceiba speciosa): Swathed in striated green bark, the Silk Floss Tree is studded with prickles that store water for dry times. Its flowers are creamy-whitish in the center with pink petals. Floss nectar draws monarch butterflies as they migrate through California for their annual sojourn to Mexico. The fruit pod opens to displays silk-like fibers.



WHAT TO DO:

Prune lower branches of the crepe myrtle to reveal graceful curves of the trunk’s structure. Remove suckers and buds of new branches as they appear.  If it’s watered deeply and regularly after initial planting, your crepe myrtle will tolerate dry conditions.

Need a tree for your parkway? Consider Magnolia, Chinese flame and Jacaranda.

Exercise restraint when trimming a pine tree.  A pine looks like crap if it’s over-trimmed. And don’t lop from the top.

STEAL THIS IDEA:

The Japanese Maple makes a perfect focal point.  To create an instant design element, simply place a sapling in a large pot and make sure it enjoys northern exposure.