For those on the Antique Roses forum - sorry I did not label this "OT". I sent it to AR as well as the "tree" forum because I know some people there know a huge amount about all sorts of plants, and it seems to get more traffic than other forums.

Heard the expression, a picture is worth a thousand words?

I'm curious about: "It has frozen completely twice in living memory, but only when the high daily temp stayed below freezing for over 2 weeks." The amateur climatologist in me would love to know when this happened. Unless you've somehow phrased it incorrectly, seems unlikely. Here in zone 7 even in the worst freezes in recorded history, our HIGH never stayed between "0 to 10 F" for over two weeks. You're saying somewhere along the coast of CA (basically, where zone 10 is) never went above 32F for two weeks? From what I've read about, for example, the big Norcal freeze of 1990, that didn't happen.

For example, the wiki for zone 10 Eureka says "Eureka has never recorded an ice day, with the coldest daytime maximum being 34 °F (1 °C) in 1990."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka,_California

UPDATE: I'd actually forgotten about the big chunks of zone 10 in the southern most interior of CA

(one of the only maps I could find with a color ramp that sharply differentiates zone 10 from zone 9)

So I suppose there could be some oddball location where these conditions have happened - twice in the last 90 years. Can you give a general sense of where you are, like a county? (even though, of course, San Bernardino Co. is the biggest in the US!) But, for example, the wiki article for El Centro says " The coldest daily maximum on record is 44 °F (6.7 °C) on December 14, 1967, and the mean for the coldest day is at 56.1 °F (13.4 °C) for the reference period between 1991 and 2020" - so it's still to imagine anywhere in zone 10 CA had two weeks stuck below freezing - or even in much of zone 9 California!

"needs to have a lot of the weight pruned out of it"

This is not a technical or meaningful description. That's why we need to see a pic.

Generally speaking, plants returning from a freeze are prone to sprouting multiple trunks. The best time to manage their future shape is in the aftermath of those freezes. See this for a somewhat pertinent discussion: https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/4977109/we-agree-some-cutting-grown-trees-need-aggressive-waterspout-control

Eugenia trees are all over this part of Southern California. I'd get pictures for you, but the size these things grow here and the size they would grow for you aren't likely similar. They grow easily 20 ft., but there's one in a neighboring property that's likely bigger. They make dense hedges of whatever size you allow them to grow, and they've been commonly used along property lines.

David - location is Marin county, which is just North of San Francisco. Our home is only 6 ft over sea level, so it is not on a mountain or anything. One freeze during my lifetime when I lived nearby in this area (was zone 9 then) was in about 1972 or 1973. It snowed, and the snow even stayed on the ground for the entire 2 weeks the temp stayed below 32 degrees F. They had to bring snow ploughs down from the Sierra Nevada mountains (5 hours away) to clear the roads. Many many of the local eucalyptus trees died, and when the govt. cut them down and burned them, they spread poison ivy oil all over the place, and many people who were allergic to poison ivy got it. All sorts of other tender plants like citrus trees died also. This is not a tale someone told me - I was HERE!

The next one I remember living through was not as long, but it was as cold. (It may have been the one you refer to as being in 1990). That was when our two large eugenia trees became masses of dead leaves -that was shortly after we moved in to our current home, which was in 1989. ( btw, Eureaka is right on the Pacific ocean, where the ocean moderates temps). Our trees were both huge then. They survived, but did not start putting out any new leaves until the following Spring. My FIL (date of birth 1913), who grew up in our house, told us then to WAIT until Spring instead of having the trees pruned or cut down when we thought they were dead, as he remembered the same thing happening to the same trees when he lived here in the 1930s, and they came back that time. So, it is certainly unusual and not frequent here, but it did happen.

I apologize for no pics - I do have some, but when I "updated" my computer, moving pics around became almost impossible (I hate computers). I did finally figure out a way to post them on here, but it was elaborate, and I have to find my notes to do it. I will do it later today, when I have more time, so you can see how large those trees get here.

Jackie

Ok, well, thanks for the background about the freezes. It's too bad you didn't have a chance to talk to Polo de Lorenzo, former owner of Sonoma Horticultural Nursery, which is hopefully still around in some form when future readers encounter this thread. 😔 Last I read its future was in doubt. He know a lot about both freezes you discussed and their effect on the local ornamental flora but I don't remember much of my 2011 discussion w/him about them, other than remembering him say that there was a nursery in Sonoma or maybe Marin Co. that specialized in Australian and antipodal plants, that went out of business after the 1970s freeze.

As for the trees, if you don't like the form they've taken because of the long ago freezes, you should consult with an arborist about your options. It sounds like they might be overwhelming a smaller property and removal would be something to consider. I'm assuming it is this species: https://www.smgrowers.com/products/plants/plantdisplay.asp?plant_id=1527

I think under truly ideal circumstances (i.e., where they grow natively), a rainforest subtropical broad leaved evergreen (BLE) takes on a nice straight trunk and full canopy...for example, I saw such trees when I hiked the Illawara region of Australia. I don't know if there's a way to restore that without replanting, in which case you might chose something else. This pic from Stanford suggests that they tend to become multistemmed in Norcal. https://trees.stanford.edu/ENCYC/SYZpan.htm

This kinda reminds me of one of the subtropical Australian Pittosporums I saw at the San Francisco Botanical garden in 2011. Single, huge trunk, and as broad and strong a crown as any eastern oak tree, with a perfect branching structure. Simply because it was planted and allowed to grow as it wanted to. (and of course, never saw a strong freeze in downtown San Francisco) Contrast with the more typical presentation of Pittosporums or Syzygiums, where a BLE was planted as a hedge for a while, trimmed, but then allowed to become a tree. Those end up looking like the (in my opinion, rather ugly) multistemmed trees on the Stanford campus. NB I don't think every example of multistemmed tree is ugly...crape myrtles can really grow that way and look 'natural'. On the other hand, certain subtropical BLEs look like they had something go wrong, either a freeze, or had once been clipped into a hedge. In that case, they would look better staying as a hedge. Ok, off my soapbox now!

Thank you, David. I could not find the old photos of our tree, so yesterday I took some more. Here is one showing the tree, with my DH for scale. He says the tree is about 50 ft tall. (accd to my FIL, it was a seedling starting in the 1930s, which would make it 90 yrs old ish. The arborist we use came and looked at it and said that it needed to have some excess interior weight taken out of it, and then they are going to cable some of the large branches/trunks to give them supplemental support.

Wow, that's a biggie. Thanks for sharing a pic! I admit I'm kind of a perfectionist about tree form but most people would be happy to have this in their yard, including me. So I think if it can be saved, that's great.

PS it's hard to find pics of them as they would look in their native habitat, but grown in open conditions and not trimmed. Here's one https://blog.growingillawarranatives.org/p/illawarra-native-street-trees.html

BTW according to this page https://www.theillawarraflame.com.au/science--nature/fruiting-now-all-sorts-of-lilly-pilly-1

The fruits of this are actually tastier than the "real" Lilly Pilly, S. smithii.

Have you tried them? I don't think I ate any actual Lilly Pilly fruits when I was there, but I did buy a jar of Lilly Pilly jam which I enjoyed on my trip from Melbourne To Sydney via various stops.

The eugnie berries are edible, but the flavor is rather blah. My DH's grandmother used to make jelly out of them, and I am sure a lot of sugar helped! Deer venture into our garden occasionally, and appear to have no interest in them, unless they have fermented, which they occationally do in the Fall if it is hot. Once we had a deer who actually got drunk on them, and was staggering around. We thought he was ill, so we called the animal control people, but they took one look at the deer and said - "leave it alone - it will find a place to fall asleep and sleep it off". We did, and the deer did.

Jackie

I'm in zone 9 near San Jose and we have a eugenia myrtifolia "monterey Bay" kept trimmed in 7' column at one corner of our one storey house, at least 20 years or more. It replace a podocarpus that died of oak root fungus, and the eugenia was one of the few columnar things we could plant there to get the same effect. Yes I remember the big freeze when a lot of above ground water pipes froze. We've lived here since 1976. The very large eugenia in the house behind us lost all its leaves then, as did ours. but since the ground didn't freeze, they all resprouted in Spring.

The one behind us has been pruned by PG&E to keep it out of the high wires, and it always grows back with vigor. We use a systemic insecticide each spring to help prevent the psyllid bumps on the new leaves.

Jackie, what do you want to do with the tree? Keep it or take it down? If you wish to keep it, go with the advice your arborist gave you so it doesn't get blown down and cause damage.

Around here they are kept as hedges, because they trim so easily and recover quickly.

-Babka