pruning palm trees

[formerly known as 'cat arrange]

is there a place that sells a pruning saw that can be threaded onto a pole to reach up 6 -10 feet?

[Abe]

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[Joseph Meehan]

How about:

[bumtracks]

We have a Fisbar pole saw/pruner here, its about a 6' steel pole and has a composite plastic inner 1" pole that extends it another 7 foot (prox) one handy tool. HomeDepot/Lowes both have them and many hardware stores will have them too.

If you want to be cheap.... buy 10' of 3/4" Schd 40 PVC and duct tape it to a pruning saw. Use with some care as it is somewhat brittle and can break. I've used one ten foot PVC section duct taped to the pole saw for extra reach with no problem other than it sure gets wiggly lifting it up and down.

[Tom]

in one of the small electric chain saws that come mounted on the end of a long pole. Much faster than a pruning saw and assuming it's as hot where you are as it was in Arizona, you'll avoid heat stroke. I'm sure that you can buy these at any of the big box stores or Sears. By the way, I moved back to Illinois where you don't have to prune the trees, just cut the grass twice as much.

[Greg]

I found out the best way to prune "queen" palms is to start right at ground level with a chain saw. They are like kittens, cute when they are small, pain in the ass when they grow up. Other varieties don't need pruning.

[Joe]

Can you point me towards some palms that don't need pruning? I haven't heard of any here in the Southwest.

[bumtracks]

Palms don't receive nor need trimming in my FL yards, never ever have I trimmed one - most of em are too darn high. We do usually have flying squirrels and wind/rain/thunder storms that remove dead fronds before they fall on their own. The Orange marbles that drop seems to just disappear between the breakfast Screwdriver and the lunch Margaritas.

[formerly known as 'cat arrange]

Thanks, my trees look good.

[Greg]

Date palms and sagos are fairly maintenance free, particularly the pygmy dates. Royals don't need a lot of pruning. Queens are the worst. They also drop those round marbles by the hundreds if you don't cut them off.