Outside of a tropical setting I don’t get why people love palm trees so much. I roll around my very suburban neighborhood and about a third of the houses have chopped down their nice sycamores, oaks, maples, elms and replaced them ugly palm trees.
Why? Because they don’t drop leaves? Plenty of evergreen options out there if you’re that adverse to dropped leaves. It’s not like they’re less maintenance. You still have to trim them. And they’re a pain in the ass to trim too since the younger leaves are basically cactus spines that will fuck you up if you’re not careful.
They provide a fraction of the shade and you’ve gotta plant 10 of them to take the place of one normal tree.
I think they suck and I hate when new neighbors move in and chop down their nice old trees and stick in a bunch of these stupid things.
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I disagree with this but this is an unpopular opinion so upvote
The house I bought had 3 tall palm trees in the back yard around the pool. Total pain in the butt. Dropped fronds and some other flowery thing that gummed up the pool. Total nightmare. And they are Rodent havens unless you keep them trimmed to perfection. Hate them.
I haven’t seen this at all. Maybe that’s cuz I’m in New England
They give such a sunny, tropical, vacation vibe
But I never had to take care of them so they might be a pain in the ass IRL
I agree! Palm trees are invasive everywhere they’re at like Arizona.
I live in So Cal, there’s so many here that it’s just part of our vibe even though they’re not native
No I agree I’d rather have some fruit trees instead
I live in a sunny subtropical climate. I’m considering cutting down a palm that’s old and big and a pain to maintain. I’ve already cut down some in my front yard. I’ll leave the 4 that in the other garden but they are useless for shade. I wouldn’t plant any.
So I grew up in SC, there’s literally a palm tree on our state flag. We had a lot of folks from cold climates move into the area specifically because they wanted to have palm trees at their house but they didn’t want to live in Florida. Oof.
Fortunately they all moved to the same neighborhoods because they didn’t realize how cheap the land is here and were paying a premium while thinking they were getting a deal.
I had to down vote because I agree 😭
This is an actual unpopular opinion. But on the other hand, there are no palm trees in my country.
If palm trees grow there, then it’s tropical.
You’re going to anger many Californians. This is exactly who you’re describing. We need a palmacaust now. Same with the eucalyptus among others. LA people love their ugly non native invasive trees and went absolutely mental when guy with a chainsaw cut some of them down.
They are generally less maintenance. You still need to pickup fronds and some types have “thorns” sharp and hard enough to pierce some tires, especially bicycle, but maintenance is generally lower.
They hold up much better in storms. In areas subject to really high winds, they can practically touch the ground before breaking, and they will not send branches through windows or on cars.
And there is a big novelty factor. A lot of people end up moving from northern areas to southern areas. And since Palm trees cannot grow up north it’s something new and “exciting” to be able to actually have palm trees.
It’s pretty bold of you to assume that palms are trees, they’re more closely related to grass. The root balls are garbage and they tip over in high winds, they like to rot if they’re too wet, you can’t build anything out of them because their trunks aren’t actually wood, the fronds are next to useless, they’re ugly and don’t give shade, you can’t really hang bird feeders, a tire swing or a tree house in them… I see them as almost more of a status symbol than anything, the people getting into them have no idea what they’re really getting other than “I’m in an area that I can pretend is Florida or SoCal without the price tag”
>Palm trees are the ugliest tree…
Wtf is this on?
>… you can plant in front of your suburban house.
He’s on the mark. He’s absolutely right
A lot of people have them because they can withstand smaller hurricane force winds. If they do get uprooted, they won’t do major damage to your property.
Fuck off, it was here when I moved in.
As a man who has lived around evergreens trees I can tell they may not drop leaves but those fuckers rain pine needles and sap onto your yard year round
I agree they look trashy to me and give no shade
I’m in Florida and I hate palm trees. There are so many other pretty trees to plant. Our entire neighborhood has them lining the road with 2-4 in front of each house.
On another note, I don’t quite love the oaks either which is the second most popular one here. Mainly because the roots cause all sorts of problems and the hurricanes knock them down all the time causing a lot of damage.
We planted 2 maples that I can’t wait to grow!
Because it’s grass..!
They’re better than water oaks but I see what you’re saying.
I too absolutely hates palms. They’re the worst tree ever, they’re everywhere here in Australia.
Palm trees do drop leaves, they are just 10 feet long. I don’t like them and I’ll never voluntarily plant one. They were a big fashion thing here in the late 90’s early 2000’s, so a lot of places have them. They look stupid. The worst one I’ve seen is my childhood home. It had two bookleaf pines in the front yard, they were over 100 years old, and absolutely massive. They shaded the front of the house from the afternoon sun, which was especially important in summer, I live in a hot climate. Just after my parents sold it they were cut down and replaced with two pathetic looking palm trees.
which one? there are 2600 species of Palm Trees, many are very beautiful
agree they are awful and look out of place everywhere except the tropics
The ones in Canada tend to look pretty shit
“…chop down THEIR nice old trees” Worry about your tree sir
I think they need less water to survive
I’m originally from northern Ohio. It always drove me nuts seeing them planted up there. They look absurd
Wrong! I love the sunny tropical vibe they’re putting out. But I grew up in such a place.