The Palm Garden

Ramat Hanadiv’s Memorial Gardens are, in fact, a collection of gardens, each distinguished by its own particular beauty. We invite you to step into the Palm Garden for a short while, where you’ll find lots of shade and ambiance. To fully appreciate it, though, you’ll have to raise your eyes high up into the massive green fronds above you.

The palm family comprises some 200 species and some 3,500 kinds of evergreen trees, reaching heights ranging from about 6-20 meters (20-65 ft.). They originated in the hot, humid climate of the tropics. They can also grow in desert areas near water sources or in places where the groundwater is relatively high; the presence of date palms in the desert are a sure sign of an oasis. Date trees, members of the palm family, accompanied our forefathers in their long wanderings through the sands of the Sinai. The tree provided them with food, shade, and raw materials for equipment and tents.When their sojourn in the desert was over and they entered the land of Israel, the date became one of the seven symbolic species ‘with which our land was blessed’. In 12th-century Egypt, the great Jewish scholar/physician known as the Rambam wrote about the plant’s medicinal, curative powers. In the annals of folk medicine, too, the fruit of the date tree is respected for its redemptive qualities.

The Palm Garden at Ramat Hanadiv presents an impressive collection of palms and palm-like species. The overwhelming majority of them are domesticated species, of which only the date grows in Israel.
Among the large palm trees in the Memorial Gardens one may find the towering Washingtonia palm. The Washingtonia palm was planted along many avenues in moshavim and other settlements established by Baron Rothschild, and became a symbol and identifying sign of the Baron’s moshavot throughout Israel.

Breeding birds find refuge and food among the branches and leaves of the palms.

The palms in the garden (and in many other places around the country) are attacked by a beetle called the red palm weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus).

It attacks a range of palm species by first laying eggs on the tree, then the larvae hatch and feed on the inner core of the palm. As a result the palm is eaten from the inside, dries out and collapses; in many cases the damage caused cannot be detected from the outside until it’s already too late.

In the past, designated traps for trapping the weevils were installed to protect the palm trees in the garden. The traps contained volatile pheromones that attracted the beetles, which entered the traps and got stuck inside.

Today, we have progressed to an innovative device containing a tiny, dedicated sensor for early detection of the red palm weevil.

The sensor, which was developed by Agrint, is screwed into the trunk close to the crown of the tree (without damaging the tree) and detects the movements of the beetle’s larvae in the tree’s core by sensing vibrations at certain frequencies.

The sensor warns the garden staff in real time about weevil invasion of the tree through a designated app for mobile phones.

This rapid warning allows the garden staff to minimise pest control, and target only the infected palms, thus greatly reducing the use of pesticides and protecting our environment.