Queen Palm Trimming

The city of San Diego used to have a forestry department that would come around and trim all the Queen Palms in the neighborhood every other year, but because the city is broke, they don't do that anymore.  

So Earl, one of our neighbors, put together a deal with a tree trimming company to come do it for us last Saturday.  

I love watching these guys work.  One guy goes up in a cherry picker crane and uses a power saw to cut through the stems of the old fronds and the seed pods.  

They just let the fronds fall to the ground, but this crew attaches a rope to the seed pod and carefully lowers it to the ground; if they let the pods fall, the seeds will explode off the pod and go all over the place.  Earl told us that each pod weighs about 60 pounds; that much weight falling from a 50 or 60 foot tall tree could be a real hazard.  

Once the fronds are cut, they trimmers also take off as many of the frond butts they can, but some remain on the trees until they fall off naturally.  We found that out the hard way years ago when we came home and found that a palm butt had shattered the window of the car we had left parked on the street under the tree.  

Sometimes gravity is not your friend.