Palm trees get forgotten about often. Its a landscape tree a lot of homeowners think they can tackle on there own, and often times they might be right. Most "new" palms are only about 10 feet tall when planted and a lot of people would rather get up on a ladder a couple of times a year and trim dead or low hanging palm fronds. But what about when that palm reaches 20 feet? Well the few years the homeowner could do it themselves they got into the habit of not needing to call a professional and when palms are established they grow quickly. We see this a lot where the palm has become too tall or too "messy" for the average homeowner to safely trim it themselves. Another problem we see a lot is improper trimming. either trimming too often, not often enough, or leaving the crown of the tree in unsightly conditions. When you Trim a palm frond off you get close to the trunk, what is left behind is a boot, which over time these boots become dead and fall off the tree. This potentially could cause some issues. if your palm is close to your roof, screen, walkway, or driveway a big enough boot could do damage, and we've seen it. Also leaving large boots on the crown of the tree is just unsightly and makes future trimming tougher. Couple this with 2 or 3 years of poor trimming and your tree is in need of professional help. Typically we like to trim all of the boots off the tree, but not cutting so deep as to expose the trunk of the tree to the elements, but cutting enough away to eliminate a habitat for insects and potentially hazardous debris. As for the palm fronds we typically trim any low hanging palm fronds or anything touching the roof. We like to leave as much green fronds as we can and keep our trimming to anything growing lower than a 9 and 3 on a clock.
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