All is Calm for the Palm

Among all the other news stories of the week, sometimes it's the simple ones which catch your attention the most.

I'd read a while back about the Division Street Palm, a tree in Arlington that was way out of its element, nestled as it was in a highway embankment near the Division Street bridge over State Highway 360 in Arlington. But the reconstruction of that interchange left the palm's future in doubt. Still, the tree had cultivated (heh) a lot of fans over the years, and one of them, Richard McMullen, did something about it. And now, the tree is out of harm's way in its new home in Carrollton. The Dallas Morning News' Jacquielynn Floyd has more:

As it turns out, the Division Street Palm (as it has been informally christened) had a little community of fans that had marveled and wondered about it over the years. Many of them wanted the tree saved.

Deliverance was offered by Carrollton city arborist Lorrie Dennis, a former Arlington resident who knew about the tree herself.

"I thought, if it was growing like that by the bridge, with no irrigation, with all that carbon monoxide, I wanted it," she said. "That tree wanted to live. It had a will."

Dennis had a perfect transplant site: Carrollton's city-owned swimming pool and water park at Rosemeade Parkway and Old Denton Road. The landscaping there already included smaller palms; the Division Street Palm would be a perfect landmark for the park's main entrance.

"I can imagine people dropping their kids off and saying, 'I'll pick you up by the big palm at 5,' " Dennis said – kind of like meeting under the clock at the Biltmore.

Read the whole thing, which obviously has a happy ending. Also interesting is the story of how the tree was planted in that oddball place to begin with; it involves a musician!