{"id":40752,"date":"2016-08-01T21:10:30","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T01:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=40752"},"modified":"2016-08-01T21:15:49","modified_gmt":"2016-08-02T01:15:49","slug":"double-palm-tree-dies-removed-by-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2016\/08\/double-palm-tree-dies-removed-by-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Double Palm Tree Dies \u2013 Removed by County"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_40753\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-40753\" style=\"width: 223px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-40753\" title=\"Double-Palm-Tree-1\" src=\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Double-Palm-Tree-1-223x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"223\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Double-Palm-Tree-1-223x300.jpg 223w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Double-Palm-Tree-1.jpg 268w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 223px) 100vw, 223px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-40753\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Double Palm Tree as of May 10, 2012<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On May 10, 2012, Robert Riefer wanted to make a generous and unique gift to Lee County. He wants to move it from his home and plant it miles away. But, he says he wants the county to do the leg work!<\/p>\n<p>Riefer says he is a horticulturalist at heart.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA tree of this size, about 22-feet, is about 200-years-old,\u201d Riefer explained.<\/p>\n<p>To most people, it may look just like any other cabbage palm, but this one is different.<\/p>\n<p>At the very top, it splits into two \u2013 which Riefer says is a rare sight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know of about a dozen in the state,\u201d Riefer told the Gazette.<\/p>\n<p>But the gardener doesn\u2019t want it anymore! Instead, he wants to take his gift and pay it forward.<\/p>\n<p>Riefer wants to move the palm tree from the front yard of his Lehigh Acres home to the intersection of Lee Boulevard and Homestead Road \u2013 the well-known front door of Lehigh Acres.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->He says there\u2019s just one catch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey get the pleasure of moving it. It won\u2019t fit in the back of my Toyota truck,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Before Lee County can accept the generous donation, the Department of Transportation will need to figure out exactly how much it would cost to move.<\/p>\n<p>Riefer says he\u2019s confident they can.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis tree is no more expensive to move than any other,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He says it\u2019s a gift from a green thumb that would leave a lasting impression on Lehigh\u2019s landscape.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not what we accumulate \u2013 it\u2019s what we leave behind that counts,\u201d Riefer said.<\/p>\n<p>In June 2016 Palm tree dies of old age and was cut down by the county.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On May 10, 2012, Robert Riefer wanted to make a generous and unique gift to Lee County. He wants to move it from his home and plant it miles away.&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":40753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40752"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}