The Los Angeles County Arboretum Reopens

After more than three weeks of clearing, sawing, mulching and spreading, the  finally reopened its doors Monday to a public eager to see the grounds in the wake of the recent .

The reopening took place one week ahead of schedule.

Closed to the public since Dec. 1 and approximately 236 trees shy of its pre-storm splendor, the Arboretum offered full access to all the garden’s facilities and botanical collections to crowds slightly larger than usual for this time of year.

Nevertheless, despite a mammoth clean-up operation, much work remains to be done, including the disposal of a nearly 17,000 square-foot pile of debris.

“We’re more than pleased. In fact, we’re quite elated to have opened on the 26th of December,” said Timothy Phillips, the Arboretum superintendent and the man responsible for coordinating clean-up operations at the grounds. “I had initially estimated that we would open by Dec. 31."

In the immediate aftermath of the Nov. 30 storm, Phillips said, workers “had to literally cut into the Arboretum” through a wasteland of fallen branches and debris. The ponds were strewn and clogged with fallen matter, which needed dredging out, and the winds had ripped whole trees from their roots.

No large machinery could be brought in for fear of damaging the garden’s existing plant life, making the whole process labor intensive. Debris was removed by hand or through the use of pickup trucks, with smaller waste processed into mulch and spread throughout the grounds and felled trees dismembered and sold for timber.

This was done by a number of organizations and agencies that collaborated to provide assistance to the Arboretum staff. They included the Los Angeles Department of Agriculture, Parks and Recreation and local fire crews, who helped clear the brush. Parks and Recreations Deputy Director Hayden Sohm assembled the assistance.

Still Standing

Some of the trees that remain standing still pose a possible safety risk, with branches ripped clean off and long tears along the trunk rendering them unstable. Phillips said that they will be assessed for their structural integrity and felled if necessary. This means that the number of trees lost could rise from Arboretum CEO Richard Schulhof's initial estimate of 300.

As the clean-up operation draws towards its final few weeks, Phillips said that the public entities that helped with the bulk of the manual work will be replaced by private contractors with more specialized knowledge in the field of horticulture. These include companies that can help restore the balance of the Arboretum’s delicate pond life.

The entire cost of the storm damage is as yet unknown, but Frank McDonough, the Arboretum’s botanical information consultant, created a virtual map of the damage as a tool for insurance assessors and a permanent record of all the lost plant life.

While unable to speculate upon total damage costs, McDonough said that the most expensive tree to have fallen was a 64-inch Enterolobium tree valued at approximately $112,000. This, he stressed, was not an indication of the tree's worth as a species, but as the result of an insurance evaluation based upon overall size.

Phillips said that despite the wealth of warnings they received in the days prior to the storm, there was little to nothing they could have done to prepare themselves for the scale of the damage.

But he is phlegmatic about the future. One beneficial outcome of the storm is that they now have the latitude to make minor alterations, with Phillips keen to place greater emphasis upon particular species of plants, such as those from the Mediterranean.

For the throngs of visitors who have passed through the doors since the Arboretum opened Monday, the plants haven’t been the only things to cause concern. According to Phillips, the number one question has been about a non-plant species.

“I keep getting asked, ‘So how are the peacocks?’” said Phillips. “And I always reply, ‘Very well, thank you. They haven’t gone anywhere.’”