Saw damage to large palm tree

[jmfixitman]

Well, I had a nice young man trim and shave some flaking bark off my palm and this is what I found in the pic...  So is this tree going to die?  Can I repair it somehow?  It's very upsetting if I'll have to take it out.  It's probably about 20+ years old and 30 feet high.  Any advise is appreciated!

[aztropic]

Won't hurt it a bit. Palm trees are monocots,and do not have a cambium layer to injure. Check out this recently posted link showing palms growing just fine with hardly any trunk left supporting them.

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

[ahosey01]

I also might not let that guy trim my palms again.  Not because of the lethality of the damage but more because you have to be a real moron (or drunk, or something) to make a trunk cut that deep into what I'm guessing is a Washingtonia you're skinning.  If that was a newer frond boot on a Phoenix canariensis, I'd still think it was idiotic but would at least consider that finding where the boot stops and the trunk starts is hard when the boots are so thick and don't drop by themselves.  On a Washingtonia, this basically should never happen.  My 7 year old could probably have avoided doing that.

[jmfixitman]

I guess my other question would be is it a good idea to spray some wound sealer in it to keep it from rotting??  Maybe a binding strap around it to close the wound, or will it not grow together?  Obviously I don't know a lot about these guys, but unfortunately it has to be my biggest favorite one he messed up...

[ahosey01]

Just now, jmfixitman said:

I guess my other question would be is it a good idea to spray some wound sealer in it to keep it from rotting??  Maybe a binding strap around it to close the wound, or will it not grow together?  Obviously I don't know a lot about these guys, but unfortunately it has to be my biggest favorite one he messed up...

Since palms are monocots, they have a meristem that constitutes the only growth point on the plant.  If that was a tree, and you bound it together, you would have a shot at healing.  Since it is a palm, it won't heal.  I also probably wouldn't worry about it rotting.  Just out of curiosity, though, can you share a photo of the whole palm and your city and state?

[Darold Petty]

The saw kerf will not grow over and close up.  I don't like trunk sealer, as I feel it just traps moisture.  If this were my palm, I would make an additional sloped cut at the bottom to remove the damaged piece, thus the wound won't hold moisture.

jmfixitman Welcome to Palmtalk !   

[jmfixitman]

We're in St George Utah.  Our climate isn't particularly friendly to palms, as some winters we get a few good freezes.  Before we bought the home there was 4 more of these beauty's in the back yard, but a crazy freeze killed them a couple years prior.  I guess this one was closer to the house so it survived.

[ahosey01]

In St. George you have probably a near-zero chance of rot.  @Darold Petty is both creative and right, though - you certainly could cut the bottom half as an insurance policy.  But I'd be flabbergasted to discover your palm rotting in your climate.

@RyManUtah also lives in your area and has many palms and could probably opine as well.

[ahosey01]

Also @jmfixitman this is unsolicited advice but, given your climate, your yard desperately needs a Sabal uresana.

[Jimhardy]

I think if you could wrap some rope around it and push it back together it may heal

and fuze itself together....probably would be difficult and I think it will be ok anyway.

The guy who did it is the real concern....maybe you could get another rope for him and....

hehehahahoho

[D Palm]

Trunks on those palms will not heal. Should be OK though.

[jmfixitman]

17 hours ago, ahosey01 said:

Also @jmfixitman this is unsolicited advice but, given your climate, your yard desperately needs a Sabal uresana.

How are those helpful?  Or just to add to my variety?... Lol

[ahosey01]

3 minutes ago, jmfixitman said:

How are those helpful?  Or just to add to my variety?... Lol

Those of us active on PalmTalk suffer from an addiction.  We assume all others do (or will).  In your climate, Sabal uresana is a hell of a fix. lol

[miamicuse]

I once had a Adonidia merrillii, that was growing on top of the root mass of a shaving brush tree.  It is the palm I outlined in yellow.  You can probably see a vertical crack from it's base to about 10' above.

If you go to the other side of this crack you can see it's a pretty big split.  I think the tree root pushing up created the crack.  That same tree grew a root under the air conditioning compressor and pushed the concrete pad 20 degrees out of level.

In fact the crack was such that you can completely see through it to the other side.

Yet it was growing fine, shooting new spears, producing fruits...but I had to remove the tree in 2019 and in the process I removed the palm.

[palmfriend]

 

10 hours ago, miamicuse said:

I once had a Adonidia merrillii, that was growing on top of the root mass of a shaving brush tree.  It is the palm I outlined in yellow.  You can probably see a vertical crack from it's base to about 10' above.

If you go to the other side of this crack you can see it's a pretty big split.  I think the tree root pushing up created the crack.  That same tree grew a root under the air conditioning compressor and pushed the concrete pad 20 degrees out of level.

In fact the crack was such that you can completely see through it to the other side.

Yet it was growing fine, shooting new spears, producing fruits...but I had to remove the tree in 2019 and in the process I removed the palm.

Very interesting! Thank you for sharing with us!

 

Lars

 

[DoomsDave]

11 hours ago, miamicuse said:

I once had a Adonidia merrillii, that was growing on top of the root mass of a shaving brush tree.  It is the palm I outlined in yellow.  You can probably see a vertical crack from it's base to about 10' above.

If you go to the other side of this crack you can see it's a pretty big split.  I think the tree root pushing up created the crack.  That same tree grew a root under the air conditioning compressor and pushed the concrete pad 20 degrees out of level.

In fact the crack was such that you can completely see through it to the other side.

Yet it was growing fine, shooting new spears, producing fruits...but I had to remove the tree in 2019 and in the process I removed the palm.

Whoa! Yike a Rooney!

One nice thing about the palm in your pictures is that it’s not a big massive one, like a large Caryota.

[DoomsDave]

@jmfixitman welcome to Palm Talk. You guys are lucky to have Zion National monument so close by up there.

hmmmm

On the one hand that’s a nasty wound, and I’d get someone else to trim your palm next time, if you can find someone. 
 

On the other hand, it’s relatively superficial and doesn’t appear to be deep enough to harm the palm’s structural integrity which will matter as it gets taller and taller with time. All that said, palms, especially big ones, have amazing engineering by Mother Nature.
 

While I doubt rot will be a problem where you are, I concur with @Darold Pettys suggestion, though that might also make the wound more obvious to viewers.

Nice to meet you and let us know what you do; we’ll all learn something.

[miamicuse]

1 hour ago, DoomsDave said:

Whoa! Yike a Rooney!

One nice thing about the palm in your pictures is that it’s not a big massive one, like a large Caryota.

Yes, I was able to remove the palm myself quite easily.

I purchased the property in 2018, and at the time it has two large shaving brush trees, one on the east side and one on the west side.  The one on the east side is fine, and thriving.  The one on the west side did not look right, it was damaging everything by having surface roots over 40' away, it was getting into crawlspaces, pushing up AC compressor pads, it wrapped it's root around a gas line, and was just out of control and I couldn't figure out why.

I spent a great deal of time to try and cut back roots that were shallow (less than 8-10 inches) that were affecting the AC, gas lines etc...and in the process I found a big surprise, which is an asphalt driveway about 12" or so below grade.  So I started to expand my excavation, and found the asphalt driveway was 55' long and 12' wide, runs all the way to the street, but somehow covered with dirt and gravel.

After talking to neighbors and researched permit records I figured out what happened.  The houses on that street were on septic until 2005, when they city came by and tore up the road to put in sewer laterals and all the property owners had to convert to city sewers.  The city then rebuilt the street and in the process raised the street edges by 4-6 inches in elevation, which means all the existing driveways became lower.  Some property owners redid their driveway higher.  This property's last owner brought in a few truck loads of dirt and gravel, and raised the grade to meet instead.  Because it has to go up 4" at the edge of pavement, and the driveway has to slope down, 50 feet inward from the pavement they built up 12".  That poor tree was sending out roots looking to go down but can't, and was wedged in between the asphalt driveway and a thick layer of gravel and dirt.  It can only go horizontal and up, so it tore up everything on the surface as it grew.

I made a decision to put in a new driveway, and had to remove all that gravel and dirt, get to the asphalt and tear up the asphalt.  I had to remove that tree, and the palm along with it.  It was sad to see all the roots that tree sent out everywhere above that asphalt layer.

[stingray]

I don't have a photo of it but in my town there is a main thoroughfare that is lined with very big W. filiferas, these are several feet in diameter and very tall, anyways one of them had been hit by a car and a huge chunk taken out of it about front bumper height lol.  I'm not sure who made the repair but the missing part of the trunk was filled in with cement mortar and painted brown.  It looks as though the repair was old and hadn't affected the tree at all. 

I might be inclined to fill in the kerf with some tan caulking to keep it free of the elements. They make 30 year silicone free caulking that would work good.