To look up or out is to see trees sculpted against the horizon, houses nestled in shade or storefronts softened by the symmetry of bark and shedding leaves. This is Pacific Palisades, and because of our benign climate and bucolic aesthetic, the community has been rewarded with an abundant variety for trees, both native and exotic. The original streetscape was planted by the city in the 1920s and over time many of the original trees outlived their lifespan, leaving whole blocks with only one or two struggling trees. But realizing the important role of trees in beautifying the community, a number of nonprofit organizations, including the Pacific Palisades Garden Club (1944), Palisades Beautiful (1974), the Village Green (1972) and PRIDE (1996), have taken an active role in replacing trees in the public right of way. As trees came and went, renowned field botanist and writer Grace Heintz, in cooperation with Palisades Beautiful, decided that it would be useful to document the existing trees. She undertook the herculean task of compiling an encyclopedic survey of the street trees of Pacific Palisades, providing verbal descriptions and, in many cases, photographs and drawings. The late horticulturalist and landscaper Philip Chandler wrote the text, while Heintz catalogued the eucalyptus, a specialty of hers. Their book ‘Trees of Pacific Palisades,’ originally written in 1976 and revised 10 years later, is organized according to neighborhood, with cross-references to a tree species glossary. Now, local arborist Carl Mellinger intends to revise the book, a project that he has wanted to do for a long time. ‘My dream was to do this over 10 years ago, but now I’m going to get focused before I move away,’ Mellinger says, with a slight smile. He anticipates the project to take a decade. A longtime Palisadian, Mellinger grew up on Toyopa, where a Western sycamore he knew as a boy still anchors the front yard. He graduated from local schools, including Palisades High in 1973. In college, he studied veterinary medicine and microbiology, but his true passion is horticulture, particularly trees. ‘I immersed myself deeply in the education that was available through the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA),’ Mellinger says. ‘I studied the work of Alex Shigo’the foremost tree expert in the world’and followed him on his lectures around the country.’ The proprietor of Mellinger Tree and Landscape Service, Carl takes a conservative approach toward trees, using his knowledge of tree anatomy and physiology in assessing tree health and maintenance. Having considered Heintz’s book his bible for years, Mellinger continues to use the handy paperback when exploring appropriate tree species for clients. ‘It’s one of my favorite books to use for people who want to know what a tree looks like,’ he says. ‘If you want to see this toyon, for example, go over to Akron. This is a better way to help people to know what the tree is going to look like in their yard. Nothing is better than being able to stand next to a tree and say ‘That’s too big for my space.” Heintz stood 4 ft. 11 in., was self-taught and at 73, without any background beyond having grown up in a Midwestern farmer’s family, started to study trees. She developed an interest and thorough knowledge in eucalyptus species, learning to identify them by collecting their seeds, flowers and leaves. ’I met her in her 80s and I had a feeling that the first time we met we had a connection,’ Mellinger says. ‘There wasn’t much of a getting to know her period. We talked about the book, which for her was a dream fulfilled. ‘She was a close friend, mentor and self-adopted mom; she had 53 grandchildren in real life, it’s not like she needed another son.’ ‘She was a Will Rogers type, ‘never met a person she didn’t like,” Mellinger adds. ‘But she definitely had her enemies, particularly those who didn’t understand her and her vision for all trees. She passed away at 93.’ Heintz’s Palisades book followed the same format she had used for ‘The Trees of Santa Monica,’ which involved a painstaking amount of work, walking the neighborhoods, block by block. Heintz took her own photographs and Marilyn Sims, her daughter, provided the excellent botanical illustrations, which Mellinger would like to retain. He, too, will walk the neighborhoods, but with additional assistance from his staff and Google satellite maps. ‘I am going to take the book and if the trees are gone I am still going to note them so that there’s a resource of the type of trees that are available. Grace even noted missing trees by stamping them ‘gone’ in her book. My goal is try to have some Internet links so people can see the trees. I will leave the drawings because I don’t want to change the wonder that this book was.’ Mellinger would also like to add a section on tree care and a small section on diseases. ‘This will be dictionary style because this is an information book. I have to add new neighborhoods (Palisades Highlands), but the hardest part will be finding the trees that are gone.’ A certified arborist, Mellinger offers a number of reasons why trees have disappeared. ‘A lot of street trees were inappropriately planted on our narrow parkways, which did not allow for their root systems to expand. We didn’t have those wide parkways like they do in Pasadena. The result has been buckled sidewalks.’ To remedy this problem, Mellinger says that the trend has been to replace the sick trees with smaller specimens, which assures smooth sidewalks but eliminates the cooling canopy. Often trees are cut down unnecessarily, Mellinger adds. ‘Poor judgment leads to a knee-jerk reaction when people are told that a tree is dangerous when it isn’t.’ He stresses the importance of good tree evaluation. One of his favorite Shigo observations is the proper word when describing ‘tree topping.’ ’Alex said that people should stop calling topping butchery; you call it mutilation. Butchery is an art form; people go to school to learn how to be butchers.’
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