White washed palms

[TikiRick]

Growing up in South Florida, I have always scratched my head and wondered why people whitewash the lower portion of palm trunks with white paint.

I have been to the Caribbean islands, and they do it extensively there as well. I asked a local there and they responded it was to keep the rats out of the crown. What...rodents don't cross white paint?

Does anyone know the real reason this is done? It seems particularly popular with the Latin culture.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

I am pretty sure this is done to prevent sunscalding...  The idea is the white paint reflects the heat of the sun from the exposed trunks (which in habitat would most likely have some sort of underbrush around the base of them) of landscaped palms...  The rejection of heat prevents the trunk from spliting open and creating a lesion that would make the palm succeptable to infection and pests.

In essence, it's like sunscreen for palm trees! :cool:

[BigFrond]

(PiousPalms @ May 01 2007,10:33)

QUOTE

I am pretty sure this is done to prevent sunscalding...  The idea is the white paint reflects the heat of the sun from the exposed trunks (which in habitat would most likely have some sort of underbrush around the base of them) of landscaped palms...  The rejection of heat prevents the trunk from spliting open and creating a lesion that would make the palm succeptable to infection and pests.

In essence, it's like sunscreen for palm trees! :cool:

You are correct sir!  For rats, Cali cities wrap a foot long aluminum sheet around the queen palms.

[SubTropicRay]

Rick,

More hispanic idiosyncrasies. I'll ask my mom why she does it.

Ray

[TikiRick]

Sunscalding? Then why is it only a portion of the palm trunk and not all the way up? I know they can reach higher than what they paint!

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Lazy island mentality?  

I love it...

[Tad]

people have different reasons for doing it, it is all worthless, rats are not deterred by white paint, sun will scald the higher up unpainted portions, and it is in my opinion UGLY! the sunscreen suggestion is a new one on me, but just as unlikely as any other.

[saipancnmi]

I have been told that is done for visibility, to protect the tree from cars at night.

[PalmGuyWC]

I think it's a Latin/Caribbean custom and a cultural thing.  They think it makes the trees look "neat" and tidy.

Dick

[Kathryn]

This is not just a Latin or Caribbean custom. I’ve seen various trees (live oaks, magnolias, etc.) throughout the southern United States painted in this manner. I’ve heard of it being done for protection from sun scalding, but it is also done to make the trees look more formal. I don’t care for it, but it can look quite nice in some settings.

[TikiRick]

(Kathryn @ May 01 2007,12:28)

QUOTE

This is not just a Latin or Caribbean custom. I’ve seen various trees (live oaks, magnolias, etc.) throughout the southern United States painted in this manner. I’ve heard of it being done for protection from sun scalding, but it is also done to make the trees look more formal. I don’t care for it, but it can look quite nice in some settings.

I don't know about you, but to see a majestic Live Oak or a row of tall, stately Royal Palms painted with white ruins the entire karma for me.....whatever the reason for doing so. ???

[www.dadluvsu.com]

I think most of the palmophiles on this site would agree with your taste...  I certainly do.

[Zac in NC]

Yep. I've seen it done extensively in the Southern US, even on trees like Maples. I've seen it in Mexico as well, on formerly wild Sabal mauritiiformis, which when the land was cleared to build small cabins on the gulf, the palms were left, and 3 feet of the trunk was painted white. I think its gaudy and tacky myself, and they don't just do it to palms either. I've seen Ficus also done this way.

Zac

[TikiRick]

There is just no end to bad taste.

[JeffreyApolloBeach]

This is done for pure looks!!!

I have been on both sides of the debate....

When I lived in PR my parents had several coconuts and Adonidias in front of the house.  Also an almond tree.  I was not into plants at all, but when they painted the trunks white, I started noticing them more often.  It really made them stand out more.

Now that I'm into palms and tropicals, whenever I go back there and see this is like been stabbed!!!  What the heck are you doing???  Don't you appreciate the natural beauty of the palm!!??  Especially when this is done to young Royals!!  NOOOO!!!

[TikiRick]

I would almost not have the palm than have it painted white. I think I am getting sick.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

(I can't believe I'm about to ask this...)  Does anyone have a picture of a painted white palm trunk?

[fiji jim]

Bad taste indeed.

Here some copra farmers nail a sheet of soft alloy metal around the trunk of their coconut palms and put it high enough that it is not easily stolen.

It is a rat stopper.

Thank goodess we do not see the whitewash here.

[TikiRick]

(PiousPalms @ May 01 2007,15:54)

QUOTE

(I can't believe I'm about to ask this...)  Does anyone have a picture of a painted white palm trunk?

Ray...How about a pic of your mama's white washed backyard junk dog Queens??? Did she actually paint them white? Let me say a prayer that you don't have that gene in you!!!!

[Zac in NC]

(PiousPalms @ May 01 2007,15:54)

QUOTE

(I can't believe I'm about to ask this...)  Does anyone have a picture of a painted white palm trunk?

Ask and ye shall receive. This is the Sabal mauritiiformis population I mentioned and the bad taste.

Zac

[DoomsDave]

Once in a while, they whitewash palm and other tree trunks out here, too.

In places like Beverly Hills, I think it's to advertise how hoity-toity a 'hood they are.  ("Darling, we paint our trees, too!  Please pass the Botox . . . .")

Sunscald?  On palm tree trunks?  Really now!  Show me some examples, but I really don't believe there are any.

There is one practical use, though, and that is for palms in high traffic areas, especially where people consume certain chemicals in quantity.  Those white trunks appearing in headlights supposedly wake borrachos (y borrachas) out of their comas in time to avoid hitting them.  (We hope.)

Again, I know that citrus do get sunscald, but palms?

dave

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Ugh, I just had to ask didn't I... Thanks Zac!  

It looks like in Mexico they don't take the lazy islander way and they paint as high as they can reach!  

[DoomsDave]

This is what a tree can do to a car, if the car's going fast enough.  This was in Pakistan, and the driver was driving 105 mph and taking pics on his cell phone . . . .

[Trópico]

It occured to me, the antithesis of white washing palm trunks is... overpruning!

Back home white washing trees was very common, but I never saw an overpruned palm. Here in FL the opposite is true.

Plus I think you'd have a hard time painting every old boot in a Sabal palm!

[www.dadluvsu.com]

(Dave from So-Cal @ May 01 2007,16:25)

QUOTE

Sunscald?  On palm tree trunks?  Really now!  Show me some examples, but I really don't believe there are any.

HAHAHA...  Agreed, certainly no one is claiming it is practical or even neccesarily true!  But I'm pretty sure that it's the thought process behind it.  

Lots of people do stupid things to palms becauase they think they are helping them...  Hurricane pruning after hurricane season is over seems a good example.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Frank,

I think you beat me to the punch.

[Zac in NC]

It is not only palms, as you can see in this pic with a Ceiba in a town square in Tamaulipas. Danny Lewis(palmazon) and I in May 2005. There is a tall Coconut also painted white and some telephone Poles too.

Zac

[epicure3]

Don't poo poo the sun burn idea. They do it in Arizona on citrus trees for just that reason. Fact.

[gavilan1]

It also discourages crawling insects (like ants) from climbing up the trunks.  In the tropics, bugs rule.  I used to see this done in Ecuador, especially on the coast, and in parts of Colombia, in locations where a car couldn't possibly get into.

[malcthomas]

This same topic came up a few years ago on the old board and from memory (but don't ask me what it was) there was some sound explanation given for white washing trunks apart from, but not excluding illuminating the trunk for the benefit of erractic/errotic drivers...

Whitewash is slaked lime (Calcium Hydroxide)....could this be away of counteracting a deficiency?...

In some Pacific Islands, a nail is driven into coconut trunks for iron deficiency....

cheers...Malcolm

[gavilan1]

On that thought, my wife should be damn happy that she can buy Fergon iron tablets for her occasional anemia  ::

[malcthomas]

Doug....

You are right about that...having to resort to a bit of crusifixion could be a little extreme..

I know a couple of guys who wear copper wristlets and swear by them for keeping good health..one is a real sceptic by nature so I wonder whether there is something in it..

cheers...Malcolm

[The Germinator]

I always thought the white wash had some type pesticides or other insect repelent in it to keep the ants and othe bugs off the tree.

Do not know for sure though.

[waykoolplantz]

I grew up in Florida...and was always told it was to keep bugs & parasites at bay...

Tho some think it looks "elegant"....not !

I seem 2 remember white palms in some Marx Bros movies.....also some Pearl Harbor movies.

[SubTropicRay]

OK, I did my homework and asked mom.  Sure enough, it has no benefit and is merely done for "aesthetic" reasons.

[Rusty on Pine Is.]

Sure enough, it has no benefit and is merely done for "aesthetic" reasons.

Tastes sure are subjective, eh Ray? ???

But as already said here, there are reasons for doing it elsewhere.....There are some prophilactic reasons for doing it in fruit orchards, since it was thought to inhibit infestations of prunus borer, (greater or lesser, dont remeber ), that only inhabit the lower part of the trunk.

But, IMO, palms are unlikey to get sunscald, since they lack vascular cambium like dicots....but too much water WILL cause the trunk to split.

[PalmGuyWC]

As I said earlier in this thread, I think it's a cultural/taste kind of thing, and maybe Ray's Mom confirmed this; it's just for asthetic purposes. Perhaps in the  begining it was for some prophilactic reason, and then it became a fad and was passed on from generation to generation.

In our super educated, electronic society, we all do certain things according to custom, even though, if one thinks about it, it makes not a bit of sense.

Dick

[Trópico]

The two color approach looks classy  

How about painting the crownshafts on the Adonidias or Dypsis lutescens red? (At least is not permanent!)

And to the people who do it to protect the trunks: How do you protect a trunk by ruining it?

[PalmGuyWC]

The other day while I was taking a nap, my "helper" painted the inside of my pool bar an electronic green. (His choice) Didn't think green could shout at you.....well it can!! To tone it down, the front of the bar was faced with split bamboo, home grown.  Then the futon got a new psychadellic cover, bright, bright colors which takes your attention away from the green. Then some yellow bar stools and some bright paintings on the wall that I did years ago. The over all effect is not half bad and certainly the most brightly colored room  on my property. I call it a monument to bad taste, but sometimes if carried to extreams, bad taste can be good, or interesting, to say the least. There are worse things than white washed palms.

Dick

[oppalm]

Can you paint a palm trunk white after Labor Day ?