Wanted: Viagra for my trees

Homeowners don’t need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows. We have trees.

Trees are nature’s own neighborhood amenity, and I like having lots of them around for shade and beauty and visual diversity. I don’t even mind raking leaves in the fall, which is easy for me to say considering that all my current trees aren’t much taller than I am.

In previous houses, my family enjoyed the company of big old elms and towering cottonwoods and one fruitless mulberry that always dropped its yellow leaves all at once. Ka-whump.

We now live in a newish hilltop subdivision (though we don’t look newish) and the trees are undersized. While there are green belts around the edges of the neighborhood, the “street trees” (which sounds like a gang) and regular “yard trees” are young.

My yard trees are palm trees, and they came with the house. We’ve got a couple of fan palms, the type used to decorate public spaces, and they’re hardy as they can be. Practically maintenance-free. But these other ones, I think they’re called queen palms, with long feathery fronds? They are a large pain in my subtropical region. They’re puny and they’re ragtag and they whine and they lean over as if fatigued. (OK, they don’t actually whine. But they would if they could.)

These trees have become the botanical focus of my life. We pay a service to do the lawn. My wife fills the house with beautiful potted plants. My only plant-related job is to keep the palm trees upright. I usually fail.

The problem is that our soil is thick, rocky clay and the palm trees’ shallow root systems can’t penetrate. The palms are like eight-foot-tall celeries, standing on end, their little roots gripping the surface layer.

Poorly anchored and top-heavy, the palms regularly blow over. If left that way, they’ll croak. Pulled upright, they’ll keep right on living, but they can’t support themselves. (Much like teen-agers.)

I’ve used stakes and wire and ropes and staples and you-name-it to keep these trees pointed skyward. I’ll get them arranged, and the wind will change direction, and they all start leaning the other way. Then I’ll put stakes on the other side and tie them up, and get everything so snug, you could pluck that wire like a guitar. The next day, the wind will snap the wires or yank them loose, and all the trees will fall over on their bushy heads.

During storms, I stand at the patio windows, monitoring my wind-whipped trees. I’ve been known to run outside during lulls in rain to quickly adjust a tree. Or add another wire.

Eventually, the trees have so many wires and stakes, they resemble a tribe of tied-down Gullivers. My neighbors think I’m practicing tree bondage. I have to remove everything (while a bored teen-ager holds the tree up), and start over.

Saving the trees has become my strange hobby, and it raises certain questions: Am I crazy? Why don’t I replace the palms with something sturdier? Why not get a professional to stake the palms the right way or replant them? Doesn’t Thick Rocky Clay sound like a boxing movie?

All legitimate questions, but I can’t answer them now. I’ve got to go see which way the wind’s blowing.