Bouquets and Brooms: Putting Those Pesky Palm Fronds To Good Use

Palm fronds may be difficult and prickly, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be turned into something beautiful.

With help from LAist’s readers and listeners, we’ve compiled a few especially unique uses for those pesky piles of leaves.

The L.A. bouquet 

C.W. Moss, an L.A. based artist and illustrator, told LAist he started drawing the city during the pandemic as a way to safely get out of the house and document the landmarks he loved.

That quickly became a weekly endeavor, and Moss said he wanted to thank the people who stopped and complimented his work. He settled on stickers, and Moss knew he wanted it to represent a Los Angeles icon.

“I was out driving and I saw our green bin, and it was filled with palm fronds,” Moss said. “To me, it looked like a bouquet, and I thought, ‘Oh, this is it.’”

He said palm fronds really can be dangerous — they scratch your car, injure your dog, and smack you in the face. But piece by piece they get swept to the side of the road into a mini mountain, and little by little that mountain is whittled down and stuffed into bins, until it becomes an L.A. bouquet.

Moss said it’s been a joy to see it resonate with those who grew up here and might have made a bouquet once or twice without even realizing it, and anyone else who appreciates the imagery.

“It's wonderful being part of Los Angeles, and I think getting to celebrate the small beauty within it is so important,” he said. “I'm grateful for the L.A. bouquet to be part of that. I hope it's just a reminder of the beauty that surrounds us everywhere in this city.”

Just make sure you’re arranging them in the right bin, not every city accepts them as recycling.

Artistic decor

Debbie Zeitman shared a half dozen painted and carved frond faces she saw while on a run in the Venice Canals a few years ago.

“[I] love what the artist did here and was terribly sad when the creations went away,” Zeitman wrote in an email to LAist.

The artist, Irma Hawkins, moved away from Venice Beach after her home burned down, Zeitman was told by other artists in the area. Hawkins didn’t immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

Jan Tappan suggested turning them into a nifty Christmas decoration — Rudolph the red nose palm frond.

It’s sustainable, natural, creative, and wonderfully L.A.

So go outside and bag a good-lookin’ frond, but don’t forget your gloves.

Practical plans

Hawaiians have made baskets and plant holders out of palm fronds, as Melinda Augustina wrote to LAist.

But these trees weren’t always in the L.A. area, so it's unclear how widely they were used by the San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians Gabrieleno-Tongva ancestors, according to Samantha Morales Johnson Yang, a tribal representative and biologist.

She said they don’t know how the fronds were put to use, but they’re working to rediscover that lost knowledge. 

However, she said there’s still many practicing Catholics in their community, so Palm Sunday is still celebrated.

And on a personal note, Morales Johnson Yang has put palm fronds in her snake’s tank.

Samantha Morales Johnson Yang's snake, Udon, hanging out in a cleaned, safe palm frond.

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Courtesy of Samantha Morales Johnson Yang

)

“They’re free and they’re cute,” she said. “He likes to be in, like, little places and it's warm.”

@dan.hielo on Instagram wrote to LAist that he uses the whole palm leaf as a broom at his local tennis court, and we were pleasantly surprised with how well that worked at clearing bigger debris.

Several people suggested turning the fronds into roofing material or shade structures, like @sydneylikethecity on Instagram who thought of using them for hot and sunny bus stops.

So yes, the fronds can be a pain to deal with, but don't discount getting creative to find a solution other than a trash bin.