Objects (and trees) owned by Governor Linden respond to auto-return on your land in the same way as any other Resident's objects. If you want to get rid of the trees just turn on auto-return. If you want to get rid of other stuff but not the trees, then specify which owner's objects you want to return, using the About Land dialog box
This is what the Lindens have said definitely about the autoreturn issue.
But what's puzzling to all of us working land in the New Continent is that it seems that in the last week, with the new patches, Governor Lindens prims were NOT returning when you set the land to autoreturn.
And this seemed like a great thing because it helped keep all that lovely greenery in place in the New Continent.
And it even seemed for a glorious few days that Gov Linden's prims didn't count on your land's prim total. SO that seemed like a wonderful New Continent gift, enabling you to keep all the Guv's prims, and all that ground cover, but not have to have them count on your allocation. It saves replanting if they don't autoreturn.....because you often say you are going to replant but then you never do.
But now, I'm logging on and finding that the Guv's prims are back to counting on the total again!
Is this a bug? Other people saw it too. What's going on?