In November, 2000, a month after moving here, I planted two Canary Island date palms in the bare space between the house and the bay.  Less than two feet tall at the time, they had grown from seeds I collected from the best trees I could find.  I selected these two from a few dozen I tended in pots in the garage.  They were to be the tropical showcase of the bay-front yard.

I took great care with them, and they flourished.  They grow slowly, as is their nature, but within a few years they were displaying all the traits I admire in the Canary: sturdy trunks; long arcing leaves; a broad canopy unequaled among palms.  They shaded my cats and me through summer afternoons, and sheltered birds innumerable, especially the flocks of monk parakeets that seem born to pair with such a tree.

Over these 18 years they have endured the extremes of weather the Texas coast is known for: fierce storms, heat and drought, even the rare freeze and ice.  Returning after hurricane Ike in 2008 I found my house and all that I owned wiped from the face of the earth, but the date palms stood; though a bit worse for wear, they survived that storm’s 17-foot storm surge and 110 mile-per-hour winds.  Through storms and calm, I marveled at how they can be both durable and delicate.

But they won’t survive a bacteria so rudimentary that it has no cell wall and cannot be cultured. The Texas Phoenix Palm Decline phytoplasma, tiny as it is, will do what even the ferocity of Ike could not do: kill my old friends.

The largest is dead now.  As is typical with TPPD, its lowest leaves browned and died; those above soon followed.  Nothing green remains on it now, only a handful of dead leaves I haven’t yet removed.  The other palm still displays a crown of new green leaves, but its lower leaves are browning and dying, showing the certain early stages that will take the tree before summer is gone.

It breaks my heart to see them now.  Yes, they are only trees.  But their roots were put down here when mine were.  Their tropical grace has framed my view of the bay through changing light and seasons, through countless rises of sun and moon, through bay storms and blue skies.  They have cheered and soothed me through my own storms and frosts.

I cannot imagine this place without them.  When they are gone, they will leave empty places in the landscape, and in my heart.

The largest, now dead

The smaller, showing TPPD symptoms