Palm Trees

[NickfromWI]

Gentlemen and the few ladies that are here-

I know we have had many a topic on palm trees, but what I remember involved compare/constrasts of ways to get up the trees. And who can forget the $10/tree thread?

I have a question regarding the care of palm trees in general. Rocky once made a comment about bosses telling him to trim a tree to 10 and 2, or something like that. He explained well that that meant to imagine the crown as a clock, remove everything that you'd see between 2:01 and 9:59. I don't know if these were the numbers he used, but you get the point.

Using this concept as a reference point, how do you trim them thar trees? In my hippie-tree hugging frame of mind, I say leave the entire clock. Just cut off the dead fronds hanging below. The tree (which it isnt' a tree, is it?) needs all that green to produce energy.

Remember that I am guessing on this. I have never dealt with palm trees before. I'm from Wisconsin. Cottonwood country!

So let's open up this can of worms!

love
nick

 

[Stumper]

Nick most of the live fronds will lie between 4 and 8. a 9-3 trim will remove only a small percentage of photosythetic tissues (and look nice). 10-2 trims are typical "cut it back hard ' cause I want to go a while before I have to do this again" reasoning. I think that it actually works that way on Palms more than on other trees (which respond to overpruning with epicormic shoots) but it is hard on the tree.

 

[Nickrosis]

They are monocots, and they are trees.

 

[Treeman14]

Stumper has the right idea. Just like any other tree, less is better for the tree. HOWEVER, most homeowners want that pruned look. They want to see some results for their money. Good or bad, most people want a 10-2 cut. Some hacks go so far as to provide a "hurricane" cut, which is more like 11-1, or even just 12 noon, with a couple sprouts sticking straight up like Alfalfa's hairdo. Over pruning of palms leads to eventual starvation of the tree, and on many species an over-abundance of seed pods.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Nick, where are you in Cali?

 

[TheSurgeon]

Palms

Palms are more related to grasses and store thier water in the frawn "stems?". Most of my customers leave it up to me to trim what is necessary. I really don't care to much for them, no matter how much is trimmed off they just keep growing.....

 

[NickfromWI]

MB, I live in Vista, maybe 30min north of San Diego.

Surgeon, your like or dislike of a tree should dictate how you prune it. Take it easy man!

love
nick

 

[Koa Man]

We prune our palms so the remaining fronds are just at or slightly above a horizontal plane. I guess you would say it is a 9 & 3 cut.

 

[rumination]

Koa Man and Stumper got it right.

 

[NickfromWI]

So, because "not wanting to come back too soon to trim it again" isn't a prob, it's good to just leave all the green, right? Maybe do a 5-7 trim?

love
nick

 

[jkrueger]

nick your mail box is full!

Jack

 

[arboromega]

nick, it also depends on what is happening to the palm. many times when palm(the sabla palmetto is what im refering to) are going to be moved from a farm to a site all of the fronds are removed just above the heart producing a "candlestick"
when i ran a large tree spade in SC we would prune them to 11-1 and bungee the fronds together for transport, otherwise the lower fronds would snap off.
for just pruning on a propertythe 10-2 was the prefered method by the client. you dont have to view palms as if they are like cottonwoods or other s trees...pysiologicaly they are not even real trees. palms require a completely different approach.

 

[Treeman14]

Originally posted by arboromega
palms require a completely different approach.

They still require food, which comes from where???

 

[NickfromWI]

Originally posted by Treeman14
They still require food, which comes from where???

That's why I'd leave all the green.

But then again, I'm a tree hugger.

love
nick

 

[pbtree]

Call me close minded, but when it comes to palms, I like to cut them off close to the ground!:alien:

 

[rumination]

Personallly, I think most palms look better unpruned. The only really good reason to trim a palm, aside from aesthetics, is to keep from creating too large a habitat for rats and other vermin. A 10/2 prune is a little bit too much in my opinion, and if done frequently over time can stress the tree.

Nick, have you identified what kind of palms you have on your property yet? It's always helpful to know exactly what you're dealing with.


Edit: oh yeah, removing coconuts and large fronds that might brain somebody is also a good reason to prune a palm...

 

[TheSurgeon]

How about just deadwooding the palm and telling the customer to go F themselves. Sounds like good high quality customer relations.

 

[Scars2prove-it]

I'm curious as to how Palm tree debris is disposed. When I was in Florida I saw flatbed trucks carrying Palm fronds and trunks. Can a chipper handle them or are they too stringy.

Nick, What are you doing in Kali? I'm obviously not up to date.

 

[techdave]

Paalms, depends onspecies

Hi all. Disclaimer, I aint an aroborist. Washintonia filifera is our native palm here in SoCal. The standard is the trim it about so that the fronds between 5 and 7 OR maybe 4 and 8 are left with about 3 or 4 inch stubs attached to the trunk for at least one year. The next year they are cut off flush with the trunk. The crown will be about a 4 to 8 of intact fronds.

I think date palms are done differently. If there is a lurker from the Imperial Valley, let us know. Around here I think most palms go to the dump. Greenwaste grinders dont always take them, even the big Semis. You can carve totems in the stump of some of the ornamentals that are neither native nor date palms.

Hope this helps, Dave.

 

[Koa Man]

We generally chip all our palms. How well a chipper handles them depends on the design. A chuck and duck will chip them, but in 3-4 foot long pieces. My Woodsman 18X eats them up, but a lot of the pieces are 1 to 2 ft. long. My Gravely 395 (disc w/90* angle cut) is my palm chipper of choice. It cuts the fronds up into 1 inch squares. On my 14 ft. bed chip truck the
Woodsman would fill it after trimming about 35 to 40 coconut palms. The Gravely will put 70 to 80 palms into the same truck. I imagine the Bandit 95 would be similar to the Gravely. The Bandit 250 does not chip the fronds very fine. Most places who will allow us to dump chips for free do not accept chipped up palm fronds, but have accepted the ones chipped by my Gravely.