A live oak on the Florida/Georgia border. This may be how Naples streets will look in the future, as the city girds for hurricanes.

The 2006 hurricane season has barely started and already Neapolitans are spending rainy afternoons inside. Will another storm simply undo a replanting of the lost trees? Not if the replacement trees are live oaks.

Banyan is a tropical fig-bearing ficus often referred to as 'strangler fig' as its root system wraps around host plants or buildings in the search for soil. The banyan root system remains shallow, which explains why the trees are easily uprooted by strong winds.

Live oaks, on the other hand, "are heartier trees and have a deeper root system," according to Certified Arborist and Horticulture Professional Jason Alzamora. Alzamora, of a General Tree Service of Collier, thinks that using live oaks instead of banyans in the replanting project is a wonderful idea.

Alzamora also noted that Banyans require much more room than live oaks. "It's not a good tree for an urban setting," he said.

The name 'live oak' is a North American term for evergreen oaks that remain green and 'live' in winter. The species grows easily along the Eastern Seaboard, across the South and up through the Pacific Northwest.

According to Alzamora, it has been proven that live oaks have about a 90 percent higher chance of surviving a storm than a banyan. With these odds, it looks like the city is making some smart choices.

"The city is even starting to adopt arborist standards," Alzamora said, referring to recent landscaping choices. With all the new downtown redevelopment plans in the works, the city will have plenty of opportunities to create a rapidly-growing urban landscape.

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