This post complements Chapter 9 Cabbage Palms in the Landscape in my book, The Palmetto Book: Histories and Mysteries of the Cabbage Palm, published by the University of Florida Press.
Over 700 perfectly healthy cabbage palms in St. Augustine Beach were butchered in the name of overzealous risk management, according to a story filed by First Coast News Reporter Jessica Clark. The story that called out some bureaucratic mismanagement with the palms trees as the victims.
No post-1492 city in the US has a longer history of human interaction with cabbage palms than St. Augustine, by virtue of the fact of St. Augustine’s age and the early reliance on cabbage palms for fortifications. And it has usually been the cabbage palms that take it on the chin.
Take for instance the 2018 savage pruning of the palms at Castillo de San Marcos when National Park staff overturned 85 palms that led to calls of outrage to the local TV station. The staff may have claimed ignorance, but the resultant new awareness should have persisted around the region for more than three years.
Apparently the news didn’t make it to St. Augustine Beach next door, a community that not only lined its main drag with cabbage palms, but actually named each one!
According to Ms. Clark’s story, Public Works Director, Bill Tredik, attempted to defend the work: “If fronds start falling, if seed pods start falling on the road and create a safety issue, we’d be in violation of our contract with DOT . . .” But Mr. Tredik’s comments revealed that he is not very familiar with the plants he had overpruned. Cabbage palms don’t have “seed pods”.
Despite Mr. Tredik’s assertion, cabbage palm seeds are non-threatening.
How bad was it? Master Arborist Danny Lippi is quoted as saying “This is 100% textbook over-pruning. . .” The animation below shows the drastic extent of the overpruning, which is contrary to any professional standards.
Curiously, there were no brown, dead fronds to begin with, suggesting any pruning was premature, costing the City more than necessary.
If the above animation isn’t working for you, head to the end of the article to get a sense of how much of the plant has been lost.
If we are lucky, Jessica Clark will follow-up and find out what this fiasco cost the City.
So what went wrong? According to the comments made by the Public Works Director, he made several mistakes: he failed to understand the problems posed by cabbage palms (seedpods?) and he apparently didn’t check in during the process since he conceded some of the palms were pruned too severely. He also initiated the pruning process too early, since none of the green fronds were in danger of falling any time soon. In addition, he was either unaware of, or ignored the latest professional standards relating to palm pruning.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. . ..
It turns out the work was done contrary to St. Augustine Beach’s adopted Urban Forest Management Plan! It’s right there on page 104.
Since the work was done by City staff, this means either the Public Works Director and staff/crew were unfamiliar with their Urban Forest Management Plan, or they deliberately chose to ignore it over 700 times! What else is in the Urban Forest Management Plan that Mr. Tredik is unaware of??