Easy way to remove palms

[arose62]

Over the last couple of days, I've discovered a great way to remove palms, although it does take a bit of preparation.

1) Spend 15 years working in front of a computer. This prevents your palms from developing protective calluses (unless you're a regular visitor to a certain type of web site :-)

2) Agree to remove the 3 ugly frond-dropping trees from the front of the house, using an old mattock with a loose head, and dried and splintery handle.

I'd post some pics of the blisters on my blisters, but my hands won't currently hold the digitial camera.

Cheers,
Andrew

P.S. If anyone wants to demonstrate a superior palm-removal technique, feel free to drop in - there are still another two palms to remove.

[dallas]

one trick i've used in the past (and still to do on a few trees in my place) is to use a block and tackle...

dig aroundt he base of the tree (sorry, no hints on this one!), then attach a block and tackle to the tree, and secure it to a fixed point. Then you can tighten it up, dig around the base, tighten some more, dig some more, and before you know it, you'll have that bad boy out in no time!...


D

[vsquizz]

When living in Cairns I found a Stihl, Husquvarna or McCulloch was the best method of removing palms.

The only good palm tree is one lying on the ground next to a hot chainsaw.

Cheers

[Shaty40]

I am not sure what it is like up your way, but down in Melbourne there are companies that will buy large palms from you and they remove them.(large landscape copanies or advanced tree nurseries)

Tim


Ps apart from that the stihl option is the easiest

[journeyman Mick]

When we bought this place two years ago the front yard was choked with travellers palms (which are actually a decorative banana) and queen palms. Queen palms are horrible things, the fronds don't drop off when they die and they're pretty hard to get off, even with a motorised pole saw. To top it off they produce huge amounts of fruit every year which the white-tail rats get into at night. The sound of the rats gnawing on the fruit is loud enough to wake me up and I'm a heavy sleeper. Got out the chainsaw and dropped the lot. Got a backhoe out the next day to dig the lot out and load it onto a truck - four loads at 8 cubic metres each!

Alternatively if you want a really fast way to remove palms - place hands, palm down, on 60 grit linishing belt :eek: .

Mick

[barnsey]

On the farm we just used a couple of sticks - light the wick and run like hell :eek: :D :D If you didn't you wouldn't just lose your palms :eek: :rolleyes:

[bitingmidge]

Like Mick says.... our place was more than choked...Ti tree and Queen Palm (which used to be called Cocos Palm, but had it's common name changed so the guys who spent most of the early eighties planting thousands of the buggers in palm nurseries could still sell them - they are "declared" plants in many Queensland shires).

Anyway we had 47 of them... first one pulled over with a stout rope, a Suzuki Sierra in tractor mode and lots of Mattock and axe work, then sliced it up by hand into bits I could lever into the Zook, took a weekend.

Cut the rest down with a chainsaw, then brought in an excavator, bobcat and truck - 10 hours later I raised my first sweat; signing the cheque!

Unless you really really l like hard yakka.... an hour with a small excavator would easily fix the others!

Cheers,

P (who has nowhere to hang the hammock now that the trees are gone!)
:D :D :D

[LineLefty]

My brother-in-law needed to remove a large palmus genericus in his backyard. Unfortuniately he decided the best thing to do was to get the chainsaw out and chop it off 1 inch above ground level. Which meant no leverage, and no thing to hook a rope into. Took a fair bit of digging..................

[ozwinner]

Go to Saudi Arabia, steal something, get caught, youll lose your palms.


Al :eek: :p

[John99]

The best palm is to have no palm at all ! they should all be classed as weeds ! and killed !

[maglite]

Generally most Palm Trees dont have to be dug out :eek:
From what i can gather they are mono sumthingorother which essentially means that they only regow whilst the head of the plant is actively growing.
If that is cut off they wont act like a tree and reshoot from the sides or even the top most times......so why pull the stump out. Wouldnt it be easier to get a stump grinder in and put it out of its misery?
Not wanting to look stupid here or make others feel the same.....but how many people have seen a palm tree reshoot from the original tree?
Cheers
Steve

[bitingmidge]

Maglite,

You are dead right, palms don't regrow.

I guess you could get a stump grinder if you only had one or two, but in my case at least, there were one heck of a lot of roots and the fibrous system was better out than in...it meant we could dig new drains, and plant new plants without running into roots everywhere.

Has there ever been a stump grinding contractor who didn't stop just below ground level?

Cheers,
P

[wombat47]

Was driving through Rookwood Cemetery last Sunday and passed the Islamic section. Now I guess people from the middle east get sentimental about palms in the same way that we get sentimental about gum trees. There are palms planted on just about every second grave.

There are going to be some interesting outcomes when it comes time to pull them out.

[scooter]

That blood 'n' bone fertiliser is wonderful stuff, isn't it? :o


Cheers.....Sean the fertile gentile :rolleyes:

[journeyman Mick]

There's 3 backhoes, 3 bobcats and two excavators in my town, so I can get any of these without paying for travelling time. To get a stumpgrinder in I'd have to pay for at least 1.5hrs travelling time, besides you can't load a truck with a stumpgrinder. ;)

Mick

[rsser]

The only palm I've lopped had a fibrous trunk which rotted away over time after I'd cut it off at ground level.

[glenn k]

I put palms through the wood chipper then sell the chips.

[Don Nethercott]

When I wanted some stumps removed 2 years ago the stump grinders wanted something like $100 a stump to remove - a bloke with a backhoe removed 5 stumps in an hour for $90.

Re the palms - I cut my cocus palm off 2 metres above the ground (so I'd have plenty of leverage) and I'm letting the roots rot away, then I'll hook it onto the back of the Rodeo and that should be that.

PS is palm wood any good for turning - seems a waste to dump it if something useful can be made of it.

[arose62]

Progress report:

we had a short, sharp storm the other day, and the wind was strong enough, and in the right direction, so a few tugs on a strap around the nearly-dug-out palm was enough to bring it neatly down.

The new neighbour across the road said he'd heard that the bottom third of palm is turnable. I'll give it a go, seeing I have to get rid of the trunk somehow.

Cheers,
Andrew