esrosedotblog

TRIMMED

Pisses me off.

I like to be the first in the neighborhood to have our palm trees summer trimmed.

Right now, Mr. Perry is having his done.

There goes my record. Five straight years of 'first'.

Mr. Perry is usually the last to trim.

(He is Mr. Perry because he is a lot older than I am and he has not invited me to use his first name—how I was brought up. And I don't know his first name anyway.)

Shit. Mine should be done by now.

What's up? Why is Perry in such a hurry?

Maybe our's will get done this week.

I called Paul about it.

The seed is coming down like rain and is all over the patio and pool.

OK.

I am over it now.

The palm trees go through an annual cycle.

The under-palms, out of the sun, take about a year and then dry out and drop to the side of the trunk.

At the same time, seed pods grow out from the trunk in long arcs. These dry out and open, releasing seed.

On many palms, a berry forms.

We have palms that we do not trim at all.

They are up on a bank and don't drop on the yard/patio.

They have a skirt that goes all the way up the tree. Home of the rats and bats that inhabit our neighborhood.

The skydusters and the palm outside the wall, just adjacent, are another story.

They are messy.

We trim those. All the way back to only 3 or 4 fronds.

It takes a year for them to need a trim again.

We could actually let them go too but we would have the seeds, then the berries, and the fronds would blow off in heavy winds.

In town, they let the tall palms grow out and down about twenty feet and after a storm the trucks have to come out and clean up the streets.

The palms we do not cut—the ones up on the hill—are close together and don't lose their fronds in the wind.

There are two ways to cut them. Chain saw and machete. Some guys use a cherry picker but most use chains and pole climbing cleats.

I like the old fashioned way. No gas eaters on my palms.

Perry's guy is using a chain saw.

Bad form.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

You know? I don't think that it is Perry's yard after all.

It is that guy on the other side of my neighbor Bill.

I wouldn't even know him if I saw him.

That is the whole story about the palms and a few of my neighbors.

I tell the same story every year.

Hey!

Are you still there?

Labels: garden, horticulture