There are a ton of new royal palms going on Ocean Avenue—and I’m not talking about the one in Miami Beach.

The DW and I spent some time up in the Los Angeles area taking in the sites after a night of primo salsa dancing, revelry, and good-ol’ wholesome debauchery. When we were deciding what to do the day after, my wife mentioned that she wanted to return to San Diego via the coastal route so she could see many of the beaches that, well she’d never seen before. Southern California has a lot to do and unless you’ve lived a hermetically-sealed time capsule for the last hundred years, you are bound to see a beach that you’ve seen on television, movies, and now videocasts.

I told her that this isn’t like Highway 1 near Big Sur (well technically, most of it is Highway 1 but that’s besides the point). The drive and scenery are what the Cabrillo Highway (SR-1) are about in central California. The Pacific Coast Highway is more like, “look that’s where Mitch Buchanan saved Pamela Anderson” or “that’s where Jack Tripper falls off the bike in the intro to Three’s Company” or “that’s where John Cusack recovers from a surf wipeout in 1408.” When I said we wouldn’t get home until 2019, she agreed just to head west and see where it took us.

So after we checked out of the hotel and made the customary pilgrimage to Leon’s excellent nursery XOTX Tropico, we headed west on Sunset Boulevard on our journey to the sea. We drove by the Sunset Strip, Beverly Hills (wasn’t that the street where Jed, Granny, Elly-May, and Jethro drove), Bel Air, and UCLA. Next came the 405 and after that Bundy Avenue. The DW said, “that sounds familiar.” I replied that Bundy was the street where Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman were “allegedly” killed…errrrrr…not killed by O.J. Simpson. But to my delight, she said that wasn’t it—it was Ted Bundy the serial killer she was thinking of—and the Bundys on Married With Children. That made me feel great because I hate the celebrity-obsessed culture we live in and I couldn’t care less about O.J.

So a few miles down, we passed Rockingham and I noticed they removed the median barriers. That meant that O.J.’s mansion and the neighborhood returned to normal. Uhhhhhh—I think I saw that from Mystery on PBS, that’s it. We then entered Pacific Palisades and finally intersected with the Pacfic Coast Highway (or PCH as it’s known around here). We headed south towards Santa Monica and my wife saw the Santa Monica Pier. I knew what was next—”let’s stop there.” So I came the long way around before the PCH turns into the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10) and exited onto Ocean Avenue and drove north along Palisades Park.

Palisades Park is famous, not only because of the pier that anchors the southern end of it. It doubled for “Santa Rosarita” in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World—the steep street that they chase each other on is the California Incline, which goes from the bluffs back down to PCH. The “W” which marked the buried treasure was there. The pier was featured in Ruthless People at the end when the LAPD chase Judge Reinhold’s character to the end of pier and Danny DeVito gets kicked in ocean by Bette Midler. US Route 66 used to end there. It’s been filmed so many times, you’re bound to see something makes you go experience deja vu.

But since this is a garden and travel blog, let’s get to the plant part. Of all the things that surprised me there is the recent planting of hundreds of royal palms or Roystonea regia to be precise. Now, on Ocean Avenue in Miami Beach, this wouldn’t make grandpa’s 35mm print he sent to you because he thinks a megabyte is the new burger at Wendy’s. But Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica? Amongst the aloes, agaves, bougainvillea? Next to Mexican fan Canary Island dates, and king palms? Huh? But they were there, recently planted, double staked, and frizzy-tipped from shock. WOW! Now most tourists there that day couldn’t give a rat’s asssssssssss about these scraggly looking specimens that look better suited to be removed so there are more places to lie out in the sun. But they were there—about two miles (3 km) of them—strategically planted in what will one day be cool looking rows. Most were planted in the bermuda grass, but some made it in the beds of low-water bedding plants like Carissa, manzanita, and Ceanothus. I’m not sure how those will do, especially when I recently heard that LA’s Department of Water and Power will move to permanent rationing soon.

I know one advantage to being a gardener is the irresistible urge to spoil TV shows and movies for everyone else by pointing out the flora mismatch with the supposed locale. A famous one, even among non-plant enthusiasts, are the palm trees you see in Reno-911. Now, Reno is in Nevada’s Great Basin at the eastern base of the Sierras about 4,500′ (1,500 m) in altitude. They get hard freezes, snow, and lows that can be frosty almost any day of the year. You can watch USA’s Psych and know it’s not in Santa Barbara because there never is a palm tree (it’s filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia). The same is true with shows filmed in Florida and California. If I see royals in a show based in Los Angeles”, I know it’s being filmed in Florida. If I see a CSI-Miami with excessive Mexican fan palms and Canaries (especially with a hint of the Sierra Madre Mountains in the back), I know that was filmed in SoCal.

With these royals in Santa Monica, that destroys all of my fun. When they’re full-grown,  fat, white trunked palms, how will I know that what looks like Florida isn’t actually California? I don’t have to worry though because the lousy drivers will always give it away…. It’s a great place for them (outside of the cool marine air). Santa Monica is one of the few places in the continental USA never to have recorded a freezing temperature. That area is also one of the few parts of Cali to be Zone 11, and there are some great microclimates there that allow tropical plants to be grown that can’t survive a winter anywhere else in the state, including San Diego. This is a very interesting development and for a palm lover like myself, a great one.

Just like I thought—it’s almost 17:00 and it’s time to head home. My wife was too pooped to see Venice Beach, Palos Verdes, and (of course) the famous northernmost coconut palm in Newport Beach. She said, “just get on the 405 and go home.” Wimp. 

Tags: los angeles, parks, royal palms, southern california

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 10:42 by spectre and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.