In article ,
says...

Anyone fancy putting a name to this line of trees?

http://i43.tinypic.com/majyas.jpg

We're hoping they may be worthy of a tree preservation order to prevent
the house behind them being demolished, so we'd like to emphasise any
merits. How old might they be?

They are cordyline australis; aka cabbage palms. I'd say those are
maybe 15 years old, possibly less. Not native, so of minimal value to
wildlife, and not reliably hardy or longlasting in UK as the pic shows.
Those trees' struggling growth above ground indicates they are moribund,
so they have no "landscape" amnity value either. However, if the trunk
dies or is felled to ground level for other reasons, cordylines will
regrow from the roots. Fast. That's their usual lifecycle in the UK.

Or, in coastal supermarkets here, one can buy a healthy young cordyline
for about £2 and grow a brand new, fast, better replacement to that size
in less than a decade.

So I'd say, on every possible count, they are absolute non-starters for
TPO protection. Sorry :-)

Janet