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queen palm prunning

16 years ago

I have a few queen palms that are about 15 feet in height. We had some strong winds recently and the branches blew all over the palce. I have 2 of the palms staked but they seem to be extremly top heavy fom the large braches. They were planted about 4 months ago and do not have much growth except the few large branches that i would like to prune off because they are causing the palm to fall over. If I do pune the large branched the palm will be left with little foiliage. What should I do?

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Comments (9)

julieb_2006
16 years ago
You are not suppose to prune anything above the bud. Also your tree gets much needed nutrients from the fronds and they should not be cut.
lbphathead19
Original Author
16 years ago
First what is the bud. Second i guess I should just bit the bullet and wait to prune even if the palm looks like hell.
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julieb_2006
16 years ago
The bud is the center part of the tree where the new growth comes out. I know its hard to look at the tree when it doesn't look very attractive but the end results of leaving the fronds on until they turn yellow or brown are great. When I first got my queens I wanted to prune it so it would look better. Then after doing alot of reading I learned to not cut the fronds for cosmetic reasons. Now my trees are doing great and look really nice.
guapogardener
16 years ago
I agree...do not cut any fronds from your Queen Palm until they are yellow. That's how you know when to trim. Make sure that you're fertilizing too. Manganese and Magnesium are essential to this palm to avoid frizzle top
islandbreeze
16 years ago
You're not supposed to cut anything off that's green. Another rule of thumb is anything above 180 degrees from the top of the trunk. Anything hanging below that should be trimmed sparingly.
suedonfll
14 years ago
Hi
My Queen palm froze and all of the frons are brown. I have 1 small green sprat coming out of the center. should I cut all the brown frons off?
Thanks Don
quantummechaniks_yahoo_com
13 years ago
I know this is an old post, but I have a quick question. I have two queen palms next to each other in the back yard over a walkway. One of them Grew to be much higher than the other and in fact it doesn't look good when its that high. I want to cut it so that they are the same size, is it possible to do this?

This would mean that all the fronds would be cut off. Would it grow them back or would it die? I would be cutting about 1/4 of the tree off, the highest part. Is this ok or no?

Here's an image to show what I mean... http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/212/100607queenpalm.th.jpg
quantummechaniks_yahoo_com
13 years ago
Actually I'm cutting more than that off, if I cut it there it would just grow back the same size. In that picture it looks like 1/5 so more like 1/4. Again, that ok?
theseventhlegend
13 years ago
Do not do that Jon. You will kill your taller Queen Palm.

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