Walnut Relics

It's that time of year when the walnut trees leaf out. People don't plant walnuts much anymore, probably because of "the mess." What they call a "mess" I call nuts and I boggles me that I'm not fighting off my neighbors for the walnuts the drop from the tree at the Hidden Court. They are so sweet and wonderful. So what if husking them stains my fingers like a Camel-smoking grandpa. The Hidden Court tree is older than the motel, so it was probably planted by the Armstrongs, or maybe even the Campbells.

MORE...

Here is another beloved walnut tree in Santa Cruz.

This one grows on Cedar between Locust and Union. It is the one tree remaining from the famous garden of the Pacific Ocean House, Santa Cruz's first luxury hotel. The rest of what was once the garden is a parking lot, naturally. I found this article by Ross Eric Gibson that describes the hotel and others that enriched our city for the first half of the twentieth century. This tree's limbs were severely pruned about ten years ago because an arborist claimed they were a hazard. Who knows. It seems to have survived the treatment.

There are more beautiful walnuts around Memorial Field at Santa Cruz High. The trees were planted, one each, for the Santa Cruz High graduates who died in World War I.