Palisades Beautiful Celebrates 30 Years and 1,500 Street Trees

This tree on the Via de las Olas bluff park that overlooks the ocean is covered with new growth, which makes it look fuzzy.

(Editor’s note: When a new generation of Palisades Beautiful click here started with the idea of planting trees, Bill Bruns was able to find one of the original stories he did about the group. The story was a good reminder that the Palisades wasn’t always the lovely canopy of trees that existed before the Palisades Fire destroyed many.) 

By BILL BRUNS May 6, 2004

Palisades Beautiful, the hearty little organization that was predicted to have a short life, celebrated 30 productive years of tree-planting in the Palisades at a champagne and cake party at the Palisades branch library Friday evening.

Two of the original founders, Dorothy Bissell and Hilda Sauer, sat outside in the patio of the library and recalled their naive, yet tenacious plan to start the nonprofit organization.

“In 1973, the Palisades was pretty bare,” Bissell said. “Really, there were very few trees in the neighborhoods, and the air was so awful.”

Bissell had read an article extolling the virtues of trees, beyond their curb appeal.

“I learned that trees are nature’s air conditioner, they give off oxygen and they absorb pollutants.”

Bissell contacted the supervisor of the city’s street tree division to enlist his help in planting trees. Well-intentioned, yet practical, the supervisor was skeptical.

“Little groups of ladies like to start something and then two years down the line they decide they don’t want to do it,” he told her. It was then that Bissell’s gentle persistence and determination took root. She asked the supervisor to help her and her cohorts, Sauer, Carole Kenney, and the late Betty Thrower and Carole Horn, decide what trees they should plant.

“We drove around the streets and looked and decided on a few of this kind here and a few of that kind there.” The group’s first street was Northfield, where they planted jacarandas, which over the years have been a consistent favorite choice for residents. The group started planting five-gallon trees until the city made them graduate to 15-gallon trees.

“When we first began, if we had just a few requests and we didn’t want to hire anybody for that little bit of work, Betty and I would go down and plant them ourselves,” Bissell recalled.

Saurer remembered the time she and Dorothy went out in a rain storm to tie up the recently planted magnolias on Via de la Paz, mere saplings at the time.

In the early days, it cost $35 to plant a tree. Today, it’s $200 per tree, money the group has received from individuals and local organizations, including the Junior Women’s Club and the Lions Club.

Over 50 Palisadians came to celebrate the anniversary, including serious horticulturalists and respectful admirers alike. In bestowing a city commendation to Palisades Beautiful, Monique Ford, Cindy Miscikowksi’s field deputy, underscored the organization’s remarkable work and continued success on having planted 1,500 over the last 30 years.

“This group has a unique blend of persistence and decorum,” Ford said, directing her comments to Bissell. “She called me, and then called me again.”

Guest speaker Stephanie Landregan, chief landscape architect for the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, capped the spirit of the evening with a salute to trees, and a story.

“John ‘Appleseed’ Chapman planted apple trees 150 years ago around the United States, so when our ancestors came west, their otherwise boring, bland diet was made more interesting by the addition of the apple. Chapman sold saplings to homesteaders or traded a tree for clothing or feed. Some of those original apple trees are still around today,” she said. “You are following his legacy. Trees feed us in a very different way. They’ll feed you today and tomorrow and they will be your legacy.”