Pruning Your Palm Trees – Part of Palm Tree Care

1. If Palms’ fronds are yellow, brown or broken prune them off.

2. Remove loose petioles or boots by hand. If they don’t pull off, leave them on.

3. Care of Palm Trees include removing Palm flower and fruit stalks. The formation of fruit and seed takes strength away from Palm Trees unnecessarily. When mature, fruits may provide food for pests such as rodents and birds. Palms, such as date Palm Trees, produce infertile (where there are no male trees near by) or fertile fruit that will later drop, make a mess or stain concrete surfaces. The seeds of some Palms such as Fan Palm Trees (Washingtonia robusta/filifera) will germinate in undesired areas of the landscape.

4. Proper care includes that some clumping Palms may need to be thinned out or new growth pruned off if the Palm Trees are getting too big for the space in which the Palms are growing.

5. When Palm Trees are field dug and transplanted bare root, half of the fronds on most species can be removed. This care reduces the transpiration rate and facilitates handling and shipping by taking up less room on the truck. Some experts believe that after planting Palm Trees, the fronds of field dug Palms should be untied when new root growth is noted (Pfalzgraf 1999). The University of Florida has found that Sabal Palm species survive transplanting better if all fronds are removed. (Broschat 1991). However, this is an exception, true only for this genus.

6. Palm Tree care includes removing fruits and seeds. Some palms produce seeds that germinate in the landscape or fruit that makes a mess and smells bad when it drops. Most Palm Trees do not produce either fronds or fruit large enough to cause damage when falling. Removing flowers or developing fruit can free up starch that benefits developing fronds, roots and storage reserves.