14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, 17 March 2017 — As part of the restoration work of the National Capitol, seven palms were planted at the beginning of last year on the Paseo del Prado median facing the famous Havana building. The section that goes from Fraternity Park to near Neptune Street was then decked out with the national tree, but this lasted for only a short time.
The planting took place during the days before the visit of the American president Barack Obama, in which the city lived a dizzying swirl of construction and beautification. The Department of Forestry of the Ministry of Agriculture chose the trees that would be transplanted and experts in the matter offered advice for their rapid acclimatization.
With precision, the construction workers made wide planting areas surrounded by paving stones while the nearest neighbors debated whether or not to have these plants that, although they are not native to the Cuban archipelago, are consecrated in the left pavilion of the coat of arms of the Republic.
Within a year of their planting, the palms were dying one by one. They were planted in the appropriate soil and neighbors say they were watered frequently despite the city’s water shortage, but they did not survive the transplanting.
Those who claim to know certain intimacies of nature ensure that before relocating a palm tree to a new site it is necessary to mark on its trunk a sign that shows which side faces the sun. The tree should be placed in the same direction. Failure to do so, results in the plume of leaves looking “disheveled” at the first light of dawn.
No one can assure that this requirement was met. Like other facts that become a “state secret,” no public official has felt it necessary to offer an explanation for the mass death. At the same time another transplanted tree died, the young ceiba that was replanted a year ago in the Plaza de Armas of Old Havana and that honors the foundation of the city.
