Palms can be trimmed at any time of the year. We deliver our palms and untie them upon installation for a number of reasons. We also try to cut out all of the fruit present in the female date palms with the exception of the baby green fruit located near the center shaft or Aheart@ of your palm. Cutting all of the fruit out of the palms canopy sometimes tends to shock the palm to much.

It is especially important to de-fruit palms that are new installations. The production of fruit takes up a tremendous amount of energy. It is best to not have this fruit there upon installation and also have the new fruit removed when the palm is trimmed on a yearly basis. Beware of having other tree companies or workers trim your palms. If sanitary trimming with sterilized equipment are not used your palm or palms can obtain a fatal Fusarium Wilt disease, which is terminal and will surely kill them.

My arborist told me that all the palms on site should be trimmed so that no fronds are taken past parallel with the ground. or 90 degrees to the ground. In relation to a clock stop trimming at the 9 and 3 position. If trimming is continued to the 10 and 2 position it is bad for the palms. Trimming such as this signals the palm to replenish the palm crown faster than normal in order to reestablish the balance between the crown of the palm and the palm root system. If the palms are continually trimmed in this fashion it can cause starch depletion in the palms resulting in the palms being in a stressed condition. This is when normally weak secondary pathogens such as Pink Rot can attack and kill the palm.

In addition the palm crown is designed to deal with wind as a whole unit. When all the mature fronds are removed leaving only juveniles in the crown normal wind conditions can damage these fronds resulting in more of an imbalance between the palms crown and root system leading to a stressed condition even death. Also excessive trimming leads to a condition called 'pencil-pointing'. This is where the trunk immediately below the palm crown becomes narrowed and weakly attached to the palm trunk because the premature harvesting of the fronds has not allowed the full development of the trunk caliper in this area. This condition can be very dangerous because this weakly attached crown can physically fail and come crashing down to the ground with serious consequences for whomever or whatever is located below. This weakly attached crown syndrome can also be the case where palms have died and are starting to rot.

We can establish a palm trimming schedule for you, we have many happy clients including Trevor Hoffman, General Atomics La Jolla and others. Give us a call for your trimming needs.