Friday, September 18, 2015

The Trees of Myrtle Beach

One of the things I love about our condo is where it is located in Myrtle Beach. The area is called Ocean Forest. It is a couple of miles north of the main hubbub where the boardwalk and the bulk of the high-rises are. It is in a mostly residential area with lots of trees! When you are on our balcony and look right, you see the coastline and the Atlantic Ocean, looking left you see nothing but tree tops and greenery. Except for a few rogue property owners who cleared their lots, all the houses are hidden beneath thick trees. Myrtle Beach can be quite hot in the middle of summer so I am sure all that shade helps with the electric bills!

At any rate, besides all the deliberately planted palm trees, Myrtle Beach has many Live Oaks as they are called. These trees grow into the neatest twisting turning shapes, some of them quite large. They hold their leaves year-round, are very resistant to the salt air and salt spray that is tough on other trees.

The other day I made a very short drive to a small park along Ocean Boulevard to get some pictures of these trees. Here are a few pictures to show the growth pattern....





And saving my favorite for last!


These trees are directly across the road from the ocean. That's how close they live to all that salt water! Often times you will see photos of these trees covered in Spanish Moss. I haven't seen much of it close to the ocean so it could be it can't deal with the salt.

Part of the reason I love Myrtle Beach so much, despite having beach towns in Virginia that are a much shorter drive, is all the vegetation. It is just enough warmer year-round that many plants that can't survive a Virginia winter, do survive in South Carolina. There are several (non-native) species of Palm Trees, Hibiscus bushes, the Live Oaks I showed here, several flowering bushes I don't know the names for, as well as a variety of sand dune flowering plants. It just makes it feel a bit more exotic!

Have a great weekend, Everyone!

10 comments:

  1. Those are cool trees!
    hugs
    Mr Bailey, Hazel & Mabel

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful! Looks like those trees in Hawaii
    Lily & Edward

    ReplyDelete
  3. Beautiful. Trees with character. Love them.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Those trees are so cool! Phoenix would love to climb them! :D

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow. Those are so neat.Trees and the ocean seem like the best combo to me.

    ReplyDelete
  6. We just came home from our beach vacation and had a discussion on Live Oaks v. Palm Trees. Where we go there are no Palm Trees, but there is an abundance of Live Oaks. Personally those are my favorite. I love seeing all the different shapes they twist into to. You have some really cool ones around your place down there! Last year we went to Savannah and there are so many down there with the moss on them they looked spooky. So cool!! Enjoy your beach time, we were sad to see ours end.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Those are very cool. I always wondered what "live" oaks were. LOL You learn something new every day! I'm a big fan of Spanish Moss myself, I bet those trees would look amazing with it.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...