SHADY SIDE OF LIVABILITY ?

[Wayne Murray]

The fight back SW, current fight back, has a program for closing alleys and
money to do it.  Anyone interested should go to the meeting.

 

Unfortunately, APS has chopped down some of my alley palms.  Remember not to
plant palms that would grow within 15 feet of the overhead wires.


Plentiful good dates on the date palms now.  Help yourself.


W

 

  _____  

From: central-city-discuss-bounces at gcna.info
[mailto:central-city-discuss-bounces at gcna.info] On Behalf Of Greg Simmons
Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 10:18 PM
To: Greg Simmons; central-city-discuss at gcna.info
Subject: Re: SHADY SIDE OF LIVABILITY ?

 

Oh yeah we could really claim back a lot of potential shade and potential
oasis spots if we could get folks interested in closing alleys and we could
plant palm trees in  those alleys Wayne.....

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Greg <mailto:simmonsgreg at onemain.com>  Simmons 

To: central-city-discuss at gcna.info 

Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 10:11 PM

Subject: SHADY SIDE OF LIVABILITY ?

 

This is interesting article (and thanks to Dennis for posting it) and
undeniably true that the city does not have enough shade and that cooling
landscapes are needed. But I also found it interesting there is only
indirect mention of exceeding our precious water resources in the desert
south west. We are rapidly running out of water in the state. Too much
growth and not enough water (Agriculture is a heavy user and so are the big
cities)  The very same newspaper (AZ-Republic) just published a 7 part
series about six threatened river systems in the state  and yesterday's news
reports that the year's unusually heavy summer rains are not expected to
ease the 11th year of a drought.

 

 

This journalist's  notion of what the history of this landscape is
interesting as well, the history of this area is native sonaran desert with
desert adapted trees and shrubs, perennial rivers (e.g.,  Gila, Salt) not
dry river beds and people (Anasazi, O'odham) that were well adapted to the
environment, planting crops in time with the summer rains.   So I agree with
much of this but I'm partly left with the feeling that this author has
something against desert plant materials. They are good for Scottsdale
xeriscapes and for central Phoenix, drought adapted trees like Palo Verde
are needed along with all the other shade trees we can plant desert or other
wise, common sense suggests we should try and pick trees adapted to this
environment for the shade they provide and the evapotranspiration through
the leaves (Arizona ash anyone? that is a native species that has moderate
water needs and is a great shade tree).  

 

Greg

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