A tale of two trees in storm’s aftermath
Take care of plants before bad weather
Larry Schmidt was dripping sweat, cutting away chunks of a monster ficus in the middle of his front yard on Thursday.
After Hurricane Irma blew through South Florida, his big tree lost three quarters of its limbs, sparing his roof and surrounding utility lines. But Larry cranked up the chainsaw anyway. His wife, Sharon, fought for the tree’s life. But, this tree was coming down. “When we bought the tree at a plant fair, it was 5 feet tall in a little pot,” says Larry, who lives across the street from my family in Oakland Park. “It was absolutely gorgeous with a braided trunk. We just loved it.”
When it outgrew its pot about 10 years ago, Larry and Sharon decided to plant it in a place of honor in the middle of the yard. It would soon grow into a menace, its hard-to-contain branches forever reaching for the sky and power lines, its invasive roots snaking into pools and sewer pipes, threatening the foundation of their home.
“Blink and it becomes a monster,” says Larry, an affable general contractor who owns JBL Construction Corp. “I hate that tree now.”
Execution was not the the tree’s fault. Ficus is not a bad tree, really. It was simply planted in the wrong place. At the time, Larry and Sharon had little knowledge of native gardening. They did not know the small, pretty ficus was not a native species, that once planted it would require constant vigilance to contain.
Around the corner at Cherie Sanders’ house, six men were dismember-