Author: Eddie Rodriguez, ISA CERTIFIED ARBORIST #WC-3916
Over a two-year period, I worked extensive with Canary Palms
with the City of Beverly Hills. It
all started when a resident called in one day and said that somebody had thrown
a bomb in her front yard and blew up her Canary Palm. She said that it sounded
like thump, thump thump, thump thump thump thump! Boom!!!!!!!!!!!!! The ground
shook.
I arrived at
the house and found a small piece of the ball or pineapple had fallen from the
Canary Palm. I was charged with the task to figure out a solution to the
problem, as it was not only dangerous but was costing the city a lot of money
in claims. On the average,
one Canary Palm ball was dropping each day.
When we look at Canaries, we notice the one thing that
distinctly makes them unique to other palms – and that is their ball or the pineapple.
What started happening was these balls were starting to fall. Now, imagine a ball 80-100 feet up - much
higher than the ones here in Las Vegas, falling to the ground – sometimes piece-by-piece,
then eventually, the whole thing.
It makes sense that they have the potential to do this,
because where the boot of the canary is attached to the palm at the petiole,
the structure is very thin. To give you an idea on how large the boot is on
some of these palms, it’s about the size of a size of a man shoe (size 12) and
weighs 5-8 pounds each! Now imagine how many of these boots make up one ball. The point of attachment is
approximately 1 ½ inches. Besides
the weak structure of the Canary Palm ball, there are a number of other reasons
that make them susceptible to falling to the ground.
Wind is always a problem for anything that is high. Rain causes the boots to swell up and become heavy. Pests bore into the petioles and weaken
the boots even more, and then there is also deterioration from age.
But, the biggest problem was the tremendous pressure and
weight pushing down on the pineapple with all the other forces that I just
mentioned. To fix this
problem, we need to relieve some of the forces causing the pineapple to fail.
By reducing the weight, the height, and the width of the pineapple we can
tremendously reduce the chances of failure. Please also note that shaping of
the pineapple should be done by a professional experienced in crown-shaping and
reconstruction. I do not recommend homeowners to this work on their own even if
they think that it looks easy. In Southern Nevada, call us at First Choice Tree Service.
