Trunk Skinning

[BluePalmsAZ]

Hello all, 

I have some Bismarck's and Washingtonia robusta’s that are very tall and I want to skin the trunks. Anything to consider when skinning the trunks? Can you go too high? Can it hurt the palm? Any reason why is shouldn’t skin as high as I can go? Any advice would be appreciated. 

[quaman58]

We had ours skinned (Washies) about 15 years ago. It didn’t cause any issues.. As they grew, the above leaf bases remained, until at a certain point the palms became self cleaning. Seems like Washingtonias do that at around age 20 or so.

[aztropic]

No harm to skin up to a foot from the lowest existing fronds.👍

 

aztropic 

Mesa, Arizona 

[Harry’s Palms]

I have never had mine done . Some palms just naturally shed their leaf bases while others hang on . On a few palms I will pull them off if they come off without too much effort. I don’t have any Bizmarkia and my very tall Washingtonia has the leaf bases intact. The tree trimmers go up and cut the dead fronds off and trim them up in the fall. Harry

[ChrisA]

Not sure on the Bismarckia but on the Washingtonia you can skin up to the point where you start to see lighter/white tissue under the boots. That is the point where the bases of the boots above are still alive as compared to below where the boots were all dried out to the point where the bases attach to the trunk.  There are several videos of this on YouTube, the majority of which continue to show the palm’s fronds overtrimmed to leave the dreaded paintbrush silhouette. 

[Palmfarmer]

19 hours ago, ChrisA said:

Not sure on the Bismarckia but on the Washingtonia you can skin up to the point where you start to see lighter/white tissue under the boots. That is the point where the bases of the boots above are still alive as compared to below where the boots were all dried out to the point where the bases attach to the trunk.  There are several videos of this on YouTube, the majority of which continue to show the palm’s fronds overtrimmed to leave the dreaded paintbrush silhouette. 

I managed to potentially kill my robusta by skinning it. It was to short and I went to far up until I reached some wet mass and I stabed it by accident. 
 

well

can be a good way to plant something more tropical in its place. I learned My leasson. 

[Jim in Los Altos]

I thought Bismarckia were self cleaning. Mine certainly is. I’ve never needed to “clean” its trunk. 

Perhaps you just need to give the old leaf boots on yours a little tug and they will come off. 
 

[Bkue]

8 hours ago, Jim in Los Altos said:

I thought Bismarckia were self cleaning. Mine certainly is. I’ve never needed to “clean” its trunk. 

Perhaps you just need to give the old leaf boots on yours a little tug and they will come off. 
 

Agreed. My bismarcks release as soon as they are ready. I worry more about my livistona palms. 

[Brian]

If your Bismarkia is very tall you should be able to manually pull off the lowest fronds and the rest should come off fairly easy. 
My Bismarckia are self cleaning but they tend to fall off in batches, usually during high wind events. I used to pull them off manually but they are now too tall and I have to wait until the wind brings them down. 
 

[Palmfarmer]

11 hours ago, Brian said:

If your Bismarkia is very tall you should be able to manually pull off the lowest fronds and the rest should come off fairly easy. 
My Bismarckia are self cleaning but they tend to fall off in batches, usually during high wind events. I used to pull them off manually but they are now too tall and I have to wait until the wind brings them down. 
 

Great Palm. I love removing dead fronds on Royals. Just a little pulling and you see the new rings on the trunk and fresh healthy growth .