Best tool for Cutting Palms

[SouthernYankee]

For all of you guys in Florida and Cal. what is the best tool out there to shape and trim Palms? If there isnt a special tool, should I just get the biggest set of loppers I can find?

I have found that almost all of my homeowners dont want to even go near there palms.

[sicklid]

Depends on the type of palm. Either a chainsaw or loppers.

[MarcSmith]

how about a pole saw or a power pruner saw...they have always worked well for me....in some cases the best tool is a bucket truck..:)

[Lawn Masters]

The pole saw is good, but I'd rather go up next to em in a bucket truck and have my 024 to trim with.

Ideally, in MY ideal world anyhow, the trimming tool, would be my deuce going at the tree in 1st gear.

[lawnboy dan]

pole saw is best. actually the best thing is to refuse to do palms like i do. they are too much work for the $ lopers not the best .use a open blabe hand saw if you have too.

[MarcSmith]

too much trouble for $$$? wow.....i was getting $50+ per palm, and that was if i was on the ground, no ladder, and the tree had been trimmed within the past 12-24 months...If I had to use a ladder or the tree had been ignored for some time the price went up.....and If someone wanted the trunk cleaned on a washingtonian or a Sabal...Cha Ching....

Palm trees were nice winter work to keep the crews busy as well. I had a few commercial accounts that recquired the use of a bucket lift so when ever I rented the bucket lift, I made a pretty good push on all the trees I had.

[skurkp]

I use loppers and a pole saw, cutting everything to about 12 inches so easy to handle. After the tree is trimmed and we remove the dead from the lower part of the trunk, believe it or not I use my hedge trimmer around the trunk to cut all of the stringy stuff from the tree. It cleans up real well and is not all that hard to do, makes quick work of the trunk and looks great. As for being not worth the money, I do them for $25 per man hour with a min of two guys for two hours plus dump fees. No dump fee, we bag them and leave them.

[Az Gardener]

We use chain saw and soybean hook. The chain saw is for the dead frawns and the hook is actually modified, the wooden handle dose'nt last long and we weld a longer (3') piece of 1/2" square steel on the end with a cross piece as a handle. this works well for removing the fruit in amongst then green frawns. You can get it into tight spots and give a sharp tug and slices through nicely. The fruit has to be green and the hook sharp. We do a lot of Date palms this way, like to keep all the green frawns on the trees. We trim dead frawns about quarterly and the fruit in the spring.

[garth1967]

i do palms all the time i use a chainsaw attachment or hedge trimmer no matter what size