Re: What Charley taught us

Yeah. Office manager at work lives in Port Charlotte. She lost half of the roof on her house, and is just now getting it repaired. And yesterday they finally finished the roof across the street.

On Saturday, November 13, 2004, at 10:03 PM, David Franzman wrote:

Here's one more thing that Charley taught us: I directly felt the hurricane here in Northern Ca. because I ordered two plastic covers for my greenhouses but since there was such a problem in Fl. the plastic was all back ordered and I just received mine now two months after ordering.

Funny how that string of hurricanes just came to a halt isn't it?

DF
----- Original Message ----- From: "Donna" <gossiper@sbcglobal.net>
To: <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 5:53 PM
Subject: Re: [CHAT] What Charley taught us


interesting Jim... a bit of history and effects of
same. You are a fountain of knowledge!

As another thought... I have a friend who lives on the
ocean. When Charlie came thru the gardens were
destroyed, literally, but the house came thru ok. By
the time Ivan (that was the third name right) came
thru, the blocks were gone, and the house had major
damage. So I guess the windblocks are only good for
one hurricane of magnitude....

So wondering if that is why there are not many tall
natives down there... they just don't have enough time
inbetween hurricanes to grow.

donna

--- james singer <jsinger@igc.org> wrote:

Boss at the nursery spoke at a Boca Grande Garden
Club luncheon last
week, so beforehand he had a dry run with his
Administrative Assistant
and me [Master Gardner]. Was interesting stuff. The
club had asked him
to evaluate whether native plants or exotic plants
had handled the
hurricane better. On its way up the middle of the
state, Charley had
passed just to the east of Boca Grande when it
entered Charlotte
Harbor, which resulted in much damage on the island.

The first thing to realize, Stephen said, is that
Boca Grande was a
salt-water swamp before the railroad arrived.
Sometime in the mid-20th
century an oil tanker port was established on the
southern tip of the
island and a railroad viaduct was built so the
tankers could be off
loaded. When the rail line was built, Charlotte
Harbor was dredged and
the fill was used to build up the island so it would
support the rail
tracks and necessary buildings to maintain the port.

People who worked for the port planted trees--all
exotic [except some
were native to the mainland a couple of miles
away]--for shade. Then
the port closed and some smart folks saw an
opportunity to create
destination real estate for the wealthy. And that's
pretty much what's
happened. Lots of exotic trees [coconuts, gumbo
limbos, schefflera,
white birds. on and on]  have been planted to
provide a canopy that the
true natives of the island [wild coffee, Florida
privet, mangroves]
could not provide.

So what happened when Charley kissed the island was
that this canopy of
exotic plants [and native plants, especially
mangroves] created a
buffer, not unlike the shelter-belts of the midwest,
that caused the
wind to uplift over most of the structures.
Structures--houses and
such--that were densely landscaped sustained minimal
damage. Structures
without landscape barriers sustained major damage.
Most of the
landscapes were trashed--but a $250,000 landscape is
easier to replace
than a $4 million house.

Island Jim
Southwest Florida
27.0 N, 82.4 W
Zone 10a
Minimum 30 F [-1 C]


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Island Jim
Southwest Florida
27.0 N, 82.4 W
Zone 10a
Minimum 30 F [-1 C]

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