I found this link about pruning palm trees. Hopefully this will answer all your questions.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pruning Palm Trees

thanks but that otherwise useful document says "if you cannot pull off the petioles/boots, leave them" :)

Unautre, use a box cutter.. make horizontal cuts.. this is for the lower part of the trunk, its very easy, but time consuming. If you want I can send a pic of mine that I did right after I did it.. you cant use this method for the upper fronds but this will give you a clear trunk for the lower part of the palm.

Unautre, here is a close up of my pruning right after it was done. In a few weeks or a month or so it grays up. Box cutter and just pull away debris is all that is needed..

I do have question for you. The one sago I picked up is sprouting its top to fertilize the females, seems though this process is taking all the nutrients and water from the fronds as they are all yellowing up. Any ideas on how to stop this, sago is starting to look very yellow now. Thanks..

Here is a link that might be useful:

ok, your trunk looks like a cleaning that I'd be satisfied with and like the cleaned trunks I saw in CA.

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For the Sago, you might find something here:

http://cycadjungle.8m.com/cycadjungle/articles.html

My guess would be that a healthy Sago doesn't have to sacrifice its fronds to support flowering. So I further guess its nutrients are missing/out of balance and/or lack of moisture.

Not much there to help me out,, will fertilize a bit more and water more but nothing specific to help me.. thanks though.. good luck with the trimming, time consumming but easy, just dont cut to deep and you will be fine..

Unature, I've asked a tree trimmer what he used to "skin" a Washy, and just like Kev. suggested he said a carpet knife. Apparently it's slow but it works.

See and you didnt trust me.. I'm not a expert but the advice I do give is correct.. goodluck with your cleaning.. post a pic when your done..

OK, did a few minutes of work on a local Mx fan palm with a boxcutter,and I can see how the resulting pattern matches what I've seen. yes, not too hard, just long. thanks

No problem... hey visit my site and post a guestbook message if you dont mind.. The pic I posted was my old palm, he died during the winter of 04.. thats when I lost almost all my palms.. Wife wouldnt let me buy any more expensive palms after that.. dont blame her, the queen in the background wasnt cheap and he died too, due to the cold..

Here is a link that might be useful: My site

How did it turn out.. got pics?

I spent about 20 minutes attacking one side of my adopted MX fan palm with a good utility razor knife. I got the results I wanted.

Like anything else, it's a skill to be learned.

I certainly wasted a lot cuts by not looking close enough where to cut. Just sorta hacking away to see what happened. I think I can choose my cuts better, fewer cuts giving the same/better results.

I can clean only about 1/3 of the trunk standing on the ground. Will go a lot slower on a ladder.

Post the pics when your done..

I've cleaned the trunk for now as high as I could reach:

We had a very wet spring in 05, then a severe drought since, with 50% of annual rainfall. Last March, the rain allowed this palm to have a longer and many more fronds that this year. I've seen several Mx fan palms around town where the owners water the palm or the lawn, because the crowns are much fuller than this one. You can see the burned up turf grass indicating the owners are not watering enough even to keep their grass alive.

Not bad, I would go up another foot to clean it up, make the cuts straighter but not bad. I bought a Mexican Fan to replace my Sabal Mexicana. Seems these are impossible to transplant. I have about another year or two before I will have trunk on my Fan.. All your marks will grey up in a few weeks mabye a month.. Good going.. also got two big new sagos. One of the pups on one the old ones I have popped out of the ground with just one frond, kinda bizzare wish all the fronds would come out but just got the one.. Did you ever pick up those free sagos that guy had advertised? My parents brought me these from somewhere.. they had asian scale on these to but not to bad.

I tell you what works good too. Use a pair of kitchen scissors or some garden scissors. I use these and they work great. You dont have to worry about cutting yourself, they cut great and you can get close as you want.

I work as a patent searcher/analyst and out of curiousity, I did a few word string searches concerning trunk cleaning devices. Here are a few that I found.

6474377
5366521
4735244
5056258

Go to here: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm

and type in those numbers to look at the patents. Now if we can only get our hands on some of these. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: US Patent Number Search

USPTO site beeds Apple iTunes, a 36 MB download and who knows how many more 10s of MB when installed?

Web site designers, and their customers, can be myopic and dumb as a bag of hammers.

I've thought about using a hunter's tree-climbing gizmo as platform for trunk cleaning. Still thinking ...

http://www.treants.com/spider.wmv

Hi!

Does anyone know if it is OK to clean-up or skin a California Fan Palm the same way as a Mexican Fan Palm?

How can I be sure which I have?

Thanks for the help! Nick