This is Why Falling Palm Fronds are Dangerous

[slip]

It was tree trimming day here at WaveCrest. I took this video when they were right in front of our lanai. Hopefully you can hear how hard they hit the ground.

No way I'm getting up there that high. Especially with the wind and that tree started to sway.

 

[VacationForever]

Thanks for sharing. These guys were not even wearing gloves. I bet when they were young, they didn't realize that they would grow up and work in a job like spiderman.

 

[slip]

Thanks for sharing. These guys were not even wearing gloves. I bet when they were young, they didn't realize that they would grow up and work in a job like spiderman.

Those guys are amazing. It's also amazing how big a pile those fronds make when they are stacked on the ground.

 

[lynne]

Not only are falling palm fronds dangerous, they are fibrous and unless you have a very large commercial chipper, they will get stuck in the gears.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Sam was a Colon Cleanse salesperson. But his zeal for cleansing had exhausted all traces of goodwill with his contacts, friends, and acquaintances. They were so sick of him and his Colon Cleanse messages and proselytizing that Sam knew it was best that he get away and start over.

At first Sam couldn't decide where he should relocate because he knew that no matter where he went people would be tired of hearing about Colon Cleanse. Finally it came to him - the place for him was the middle of the Amazon rain forest, where the indigenous people had no phones, no computers, no television, and thus had never heard of the wonders of Colon Cleanse.

So Sam packed up his clothes, his marketing materials, and his samples and moved to a remote village in the depths of the Amazon that seldom had any contact with outsiders. To Sam's amazement, though, he found that some of the people in the village spoke a bit of English. So Sam went right to work, touting the benefits of Colon Cleanse to anyone who would listen (and quite a few who didn’t).

After three days, the villagers had enough. One of the village elders who spoke English told Sam to come with him; they were going to take a walk in the jungle. They journeyed deep into the jungle, across rivers and through mosquito infested swamps.

Finally they reached a place in the jungle that was overgrown with the largest lushest ferns Sam had ever seen. Behind the ferns was the entrance to a cave The elder looked around in the ferns near the entrance to the cave and found a large vessel that had been stashed in the vines near cave entrance. The elder led Sam into the cave and ordered Sam to fill the vessel with water from a pond in the floor of the cave. Then the elder broke off some of the fern leaves and told Sam to eat them.

The ferns tasted vile and foul; it was all Sam could do to keep them in his mouth. But he chewed and swallowed anyway. A few moments after swallowing the fern leaves Sam felt as if all of the fluids were being drawn out of his body. He grabbed the vessel and drank and drank and drank. He would never have thought it humanly possible to drink as much water as he drank.

Suddenly Sam felt as if his abdomen was about to explode. He stumbled to the front of the cave, dropped his pants right there in the ferns, and squatted. And squatted. And squatted. His intestines gushed, poured, drained, guzzled, and gurgled. It continued for almost an hour, non-stop.

When the agony was over, Sam collapsed onto his side. While his insides ached, Sam suddenly realized that his entire body had been purged of all traces of all toxins that had accumulated in his body throughout the many years he had lived in "civilization". He had never really felt purer or healthier in his life than he did at that moment.

Sam rolled over and looked at the ferns hanging over the front of the cave. Suddenly he realized that with fronds like these, who needs enemas?

 

[mchct]

Made me remember that we planted three queen palm trees (and a couple in the backyard) in front of our house years ago. I bought them from Home Depot and Costco and they were the small 1 or 5 gallon size pots and were only like $25 each, so we thought we were getting a bargain!

15 years later, those tiny Queen palm trees were taller than our two story house and dropping tons of those large yellow palm seeds that I would have to sweep up off the lawn, driveway, and curb. I remember sweeping up a bunch of those yellow palm seeds one morning and the kids then tell me it's an early start day so I have to stop and take them to school right now. I leave all the yellow palm seeds in a pile on the curb to sweep and drop in our green bin when I return in 25 minutes. However when I return, my neighbor is laughing and I could see as I drove back down the street a whole trail of yellow seeds. My neighbor told me that as soon as we drove off the city street sweeper truck came by (earlier than usual!) and unfortunately my temporary pile of palm seeds got pushed into the sweepers but didn't get all "vacuumed up" and instead spread down the street. She told me that the driver even turned his sweeper truck around and made at least three passes to try and get the seeds but there were still seeds the truck couldn't pick up. I felt bad and got my large scooper shovel and push broom and tried to clean up the smashed mess on the street.

Even getting the palm fronds trimmed regularly, some dried palm fronds and the pointed seed pods would break off and drop down and "spear" into the lawn! As Slip posted, those palm fronds are super heavy and dangerous and we were worried that someone could get hurt if one of the fronds or a seed pod fell on someone. We were also tired of cleaning up all the seed pods and decided to get rid of the trees and paid our tree guy $500 to cut them all down and dig out the roots. It was worth the $500 we spent because it also got rid of those huge waterbugs/roaches that were always outside in the summer - some people call these palm trees "palmetto trees" and those huge waterbugs/roaches are also called palmetto bugs and they lived in the trunk base under the fronds! Yuck!

And yes, the palm fronds are very fibrous and our waste management trash hauler's rules say to put palm fronds into the regular trash and not in the green (grass/plant clippings, regular leaves/branches) bin. Our tree guy had his crew bring their huge chipper machine and truck to shred the palm fronds and some of the smaller trunks when they took down those palm trees. Yeah, so we spent $100 for those palm trees, only to end up paying $500 later to get rid of them!