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We have a dense line of palm trees protecting our shoreline on our property (South Caribbean), and ours is the only house on a long coast which hasn't lost metr
by DelaneyM 4y ago
We have a dense line of palm trees protecting our shoreline on our property (South Caribbean), and ours is the only house on a long coast which hasn't lost metres of land to oceans over the past decade. (Our neighbours have prioritised private beaches, I like my farmland.) It's easily visible on Google Maps satellite view, but I'm not sure I want to post a link to my house...
Because they're all that's holding the property together their root systems are exposed on the seaward side, and they are _massive_. I couldn't build a stronger retaining wall. I wish this article shared some pictures of a palm root system, it's really the most impressive part. Together with seagrape shrubs I think I'm actually reclaiming a few inches a year. I also have some great footage of palm trees bent over nearly 90° in a cat-3 from a few years back.
One thing not mentioned here is the risk under storms of coconuts. In a tropical storm, palm trees become coconut catapults when the trunks whip around at high speed and under tension. We've lost multiple 1"-thick concrete roof tiles to coconut strikes, as well smashing (but not breaching) a cat-3 hurricane door.
Here for the Caribbean content!
- bombcar 4y agoThey're basically the trees from Seuss's The King's Stilts.
- dopamean 4y agoHow is your land going to hold up as the neighbors' is eaten away?
- DelaneyM 4y agoWe're not going to lose our land from the edges, if that's what you're asking. It's actually causing a bit of an issue right now because our land has been retained while the beach has disappeared, so it's no longer possible to walk the beach except at lowest tide. slOne of my neighbors has requested (with a legal letter) that we remove our trees and landscape in a continuous beach.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoHow maddeningly shortsighted!
- thorncorona 4y agoHow does that work when they send a letter telling you how to landscape your land?
- DelaneyM 4y agoIn this case I laugh to myself and ask my lawyers to reply. It's a bit more nuanced than I make it sound (https://www.ogierproperty.ky/publications/public-access-rights-to-caymans-beaches.html https://www.ogierproperty.ky/publications/public-access-righ...), but it's hard to make the argument that I've intentionally extended my property to block the beach when the original property lines are maintained and the trees doing the work are 20 years old. Due to erosion of artificial beaches and our access laws, my neighbors are actually losing a few feet of private land every year. I'm just kicking back and literally yelling at them to get off my backyard lawn. I can't wait for their reaction when I get my chicken coop...
- lijogdfljk 4y ago> I can't wait for their reaction when I get my chicken coop... Those are my goals too :) Hope yours goes well. I'm trying to buy land for privacy trees and small farm. Hopefully, one day..
- markdown 4y agoEventually even coconut trees don't help. I, along with extended family, own a large coconut plantation in Fiji with over 1km of beachfront. Wave erosion has been so bad that in some places it's gone past the first row of trees so that they're detached from the beach and stand alone out at sea at high tide.
- DelaneyM 4y agoAbsolutely true. We have a reef about 200m offshore that's doing the heavy lifting blocking waves for us, though it's at risk to reef death (SCTLD - Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease).