El Paso city is preparing to rip out nearly 100 palm trees that did not survive the sub-freezing temperatures that moved in across the borderland exactly one year ago Wednesday.

A spokeswoman for the city said there about 520 palm trees planted in city medians and 15 percent were hit hard by the freeze. All the trees torn down on El Paso city property will be replaced with trees from the city tree farm. The city estimates the cost will factor around $68 per square foot.

The city isn't alone in ending the "waiting game" to see if the area palms and pines would make a comeback. Eric Diaz with Mike's Rod Iron and Landscaping said the company's removed several freeze dried trees in recent weeks.

"A lot of times people don't realize that a single branch might be sucking the life out of the rest of the tree," said Diaz. "If they're still trying to save the rest of the tree, we can come out and cut some of it back to see if it will come back to life. But if it's very bare and looking like it's drying, it's a good tell- tale sign that it may not be coming back."

Although cutting losses seems to be the popular choice, green thumb Hilde Poole advises homeowners to wait just a little bit longer.

"It's expensive to cut down a big tree like a palm," said Poole, an employee of 20 years at Casa Verde greenhouse. "Make sure you're still giving the tree plenty of water, if you see any green at the top it means the heart of the palm tree, which is near to the top, did not freeze and you can go ahead an leave it."

Poole said the only other reason besides the freeze that a pine tree might suffer would be due to a parasite. Deciphering the freeze from a parasitical infection is a matter of looking at the branches of a tree, according to Poole. A tree trying to recover from a freeze will still have some color left in the ends of the branches, but bug-ridden tree will have lost its color from the tip of the branch working back towards the trunk.

"If you scratch off a bit of the branch and find green, don't get rid of the tree," Poole said, also advising of another way to protect trees from future freezing. "You want to make sure you water them when you hear about an oncoming freeze. Because most of our ground is sand, when it's dry the dirt pulls away from the roots and the freeze hits the roots."

You can contact Mike's Rod Iron and Landscaping for tree removal at (915) 241-2113