A treatise on the treatment of trees

Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread. Do you know who said

that? Neither do I. But I am about to leave the wise men in the dust.

Who doesn’t love trees? Raise your hand. See? Nobody. We all do.

There is a bond between trees and us, and there always has been.

Trees are shelter, strength and sustenance. They even look like us,

with a big head and arms and a thick trunk.

I, for one, happen to be crazy about them. I come from a place

called the Right Coast, where trees are trees. I’m sorry, but palm

trees are not trees. Trees are not skinny things with a long, spindly

trunk and a fright wig on the top. Trees are majestic and powerful,

with a massive trunk that’s 10 feet around and a crown of leaves

that’s 40 feet across -- like an oak, or a maple.

My wife and I both have our favorite trees. Mine is a spectacular

oak in Pleasantville, N.Y., that was planted by George Washington and

stands today outside the headquarters of Reader’s Digest. Sharyn’s is

a breathtaking banyan tree in the courtyard of the Moana Surfrider

hotel on Waikiki, which opened in 1901. Actually, the banyan is a

species of ficus, and it ... uh oh. I told you this would happen. I

said the “f” word -- ficus.

“I think that I shall never see, A poem lovely as a tree.” I do

know who said that, and so do you. It was Joyce Kilmer. By the way,

did you know that Joyce Kilmer was a man? Most people think he was a

woman because “Trees” was his only smash hit and he never used his

first name, which was Alfred.

Where were we? Oh yeah, Balboa Village.

The saga of Balboa and the trees that was writ large last week was

news, but not new. Talk about deja vu all over again. Until about 10

years, Mesa Verde Drive in Costa Mesa was lined on both sides with

massive, towering ficus trees, over a hundred of them. I remember

them well, because our house backs onto that street. The Mesa Verde

loop was a glorious sight if you were driving, but less wonderful if

you were walking, which almost no one did because you couldn’t. Joyce

Kilmer may have never seen a poem lovely as a tree, but I’ll bet he

never saw the roots on a ficus on Mesa Verde Drive either.

Almost every section of sidewalk had been lifted anywhere from an

inch to well over a foot. Block after block looked like something out

of Toon Town, with some sections that been lifted into a little pup

tent. You walked up one side, stepped over a giant root, then down

the other side.

The roots were also causing havoc with the adjacent homes, and had

shattered the curb and gutter along the length of the street. Aside

from the constant stream of complaints, the city was hemorrhaging

money on “trip and fall” claims. It was not a good thing.

Obviously something had to be done, but we were all heartsick at

the prospect of yanking out more than a hundred big, beautiful ficus

trees. There’s has to be another way, I thought, and was sure I could

find it with a little homework and a drop of imagination.

The first thing I found out was that we were not alone. Thousands

of cities, and almost every one in California, were wrestling with

the “ficus that ate the city” problem. Ficus trees are everywhere

around the world. It’s a member of the mulberry family, with

approximately 1,000 different species.

The ficus is the Baby Huey of trees. It grows very fast, which is

a good thing, but it has a voracious, far-reaching root system just

below the surface, which is a bad thing. The tropical version of the

ficus is called the “strangler fig” -- ficus is Latin for “fig” --

because its roots can move under, over, around and through any

obstacle and squeeze it in a stranglehold.

The Maya and the Aztecs made paper from ficus trees, but the trees

had long memories. When you see those incredible pictures of ancient

ruins in a tropical jungle that have virtually disappeared beneath a

knotted web of massive roots -- those are ficus trees at work.

In the 1950s and ‘60s, cities across the country planted ficus by

the millions because of their incredible growth rate. Unfortunately,

no one paid too much attention to the fact that the roots grow just

as fast, just as huge, and just love fresh air and sunlight.

What can be done about them? Unfortunately, once they’re mature,

not much. Root trimming or root barriers are OK for new plantings,

but are just whistling in the graveyard with mature ficus trees.

Some cities, like Pasadena, have tried raised sidewalks of wood or

wrought iron, which is fine if you’re after the Dodge City in 1880

look. Santa Monica, bless their hearts, tried replacing sidewalk

sections beside their ficus with heavy rubber panels, for those who

don’t mind a few feet of lumpy black rubber sidewalk every few yards.

Yikes.

But at the end of the day, which we reached some 10 years ago and the Newport Beach Council last week, the only rational solution is to

remove trees that should have never, ever been planted where they

were, and replace them with the right tree for the right place. As

solutions go, that one bites. But sometimes life just will not let

you off the hook.

OK, pop quiz. Here’s how the last line of “Trees” starts: “Poems

are made by fools like me ...” You tell me how it ends. I gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs

Sundays. He may be reached via e-mail at [email protected].