Phoenix dactylifera Medjool date palms are being planted along Canal Street in New Orleans, part of the Canal Improvement Project. The trees will run 17 blocks from S. Clairborne Ave, just northeast of the Louisiana Superdome, all the way down to the Mississippi River. Southeast of N. Rampart, Canal Street becomes the southeasterly border of the French Quarter.

Some 48 palms, with their fronds tied up, are already planted. A total of 239 of the Moroccan palms (grown in Bard Valley, Ca., and costing nearly $7,000 a piece) are scheduled for installation, with a completion date around Nov. 2006.

Granite and brick sidewalks, new lighting and granite sidewalk extensions (bump outs) at each street corner are also part of the nearly $13 million streetscape renovation that broke ground in Feb. 2005.

Torre Design Consortium Ltd. of New Orleans, headed by L. Azio Torre, FASLA, AIA, has done the master planning. Boh Bros. Construction Co., also of New Orleans, is the general contractor.

Reply: Moroccan Palms Soften Canal Street Streetscape Renovation ?EUR??,,????'?????<

The picture on the news item (the left one) is of one of our teams installing p. canariensis (not p. dac. Medjool) at a residential site in Naples, Florida. The picture (at right) is Medjool inventory stocked in one of our nurturing facilities in Boynton Beach. We also maintain facilities in Houston Texas, and Jacksonville, Florida. Our gross sales of these two palms will top 12 million dollars this year and the demand is growing rapidly across the south. I wrote because the names on the photos (on the website) were inaccurate, but have realized that I am interested in telling our story.

Groundworks introduced P. dac medjool to the landscape community in the southern U.S. I pioneered its use in Florida in 1990 and proved to the landscape architects the palm would survive and thrive. Today we are far and away the largest distributor of these palms in the south. We installed the first Medjools used in New Orleans at the Star Casino (now Ballys) and subsequently supplied the Medjools installed at Harrah?EUR??,,????'?????<

I started with nothing and am living proof that hard work, good ideas, vision of what might be and a ?EUR??,,????'?????<

George P. Nottingham, President
Groundworks of Palm Beach County Inc.
www.datepalm.com
Boynton Beach, FL

Clarification

Lighting Design Alliance provided the photo for LASN?EUR??,,????'?????<

?EUR??,,????'?????< LASN April 2005 issue

Dear LASN, It?EUR??,,????'?????<

Dennis Dudley, Landscape Architect
National Park Service, Glen Canyon NRA
Page, Arizona