I HAVE a great love for flora and fauna in general, except palms, Ficus and many other over used vegetation in the urban context, without vision, forethought.
Most palms are hazardous in sidewalks or spaces with high pedestrian traffic. The amount of organic waste, fronds and seeds is overwhelming.
The pictures at left show two examples of palms. One is really ugly too big, dwarfing the residence and difficult in terms of maintenance. Imagine yourself sharp machete in hand, climbing a ten feet ladder cutting them ugly fronds and plenty of seeds.
I used some fronds for privacy in our north garden. Six months later, t they are coming apart and do not smell like roses. That is the only use for them. Now imagine, carrying them out for the garbage people to collect them, after making the necessary phone call, waiting for the pick up.
A shredder is the most intelligent solution for their disposal, unfortunately no one has ever done it. At least, I have not seen it.
In the case of the nice looking palms on top, in adequate spaces you do not have the pedestrian traffic, but still, check the size of the fronds. If they are in your own backyard, as in this case, the residents in the apartment, will have to pay for the service.
Be wise. Leave them palms alone except for large spaces, where they will not bother anyjuan, except, perhaps when them fronds and seed bend dry and dead hanging until the day of the last judgement.
Your points on the mess getting rid of them definitely outweigh the palm person's delight that they just pick up some large fronds that fell during a storm, over raking leaves for hours. No use for them at all?
ReplyDeleteThe only thing worse than cleaning up some palms would be to have Bougainvillea growing up through them...ouch!
Tall palms like Washingtonia robusta work in so few places, while W. filifera at least is less limited...like your feather palms, you don't need many with their width.