4 Comments
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No particular season. It is always important to trim palm trees only when needed for constant pruning and trimming can cause damage. Constant trimming leads to weakening of the tree and can eventually cause it to die. You should never trim off live leaves that are on an angle originating above the horizon. In other words... imagine a horizontal line from 9:00 to 3:00. When removing leaves, cut the bases close to the trunk but not so close to where it is into the trunk which will damage the ...» -
You should remove palm flower and fruit stalks, John, but palms generally take care of them selves when it comes to other trimming. Ideally, only dead and broken fronds should be removed from palm trees. You should never remove fronds that do not hang below a line parallel to the ground, or what is known as the 9-to-3 rule after the hands on a clock. -
I saw this a little too late - what damage did I do by cutting those fronds above the horizontal line? And should I do anything after having done that? -
It depends on how much you pruned, Keith. Mature fronds provide food for developing fronds, flowers, fruit, roots and storage reserves in the palm's trunk. When green fronds are pruned, the nutrients they would have produced are lost to the rest of the tree. If you have not been fertilizing your palms, you should start.
