Palm trees can be harmed with strip-ties

I saw several large mature foxtail palms at Lakewood Ranch Main Street with the leaf sheaths strip-tied around the green crown shaft. I do know they were strip-tied for more than a month so far. The strip-ties are apparently there to prevent the leaf sheaths from falling on people, vehicles, etc.

Palms are also often hurricane cut and tomahawk cut to prevent dead fronds from falling. Those two practices cut palm fronds off below the 2 o’clock to 10 o’clock, or 1 o’clock to 11 o’clock positions, respectively.

The crown shaft area is in the form of a column above the main trunk and below the leaf bases of the palm. The foxtail, royal, Christmas and other green crown-shafted palms grow from the heart above the crown. Normal trunk growth is when the lower fronds die, split, unwrap from the crown and fall to show a new crown surface. This scars the trunk to form the rings and trunk growth. The strip-tie practice may start the crown to rot from excess moisture and will hinder the palm’s growth.

I would think the strip-tie practice harms and eventually kills the palms. Palms are starved when any green fronds are removed. I have seen many pencil-pointed palm trunks created by removing the fronds that energy manufacturing part of the palms.

Please care for your palms by discontinuing either or both of these practices. Provide proper fertilizer and other environmental practices. They may give you years of their unique beauty. Check information at ufl.edu for more info.

This story was originally published April 29, 2017 at 4:13 PM with the headline "Palm trees can be harmed with strip-ties."