Washingtonian palms

[Greg]

Someone help me with these pain in the a$$ washingtonians that I have to trim. There are 4 of them from 40ft to 55ft. The boots/skins strip away pretty easy I cleared about 10ft in about 10 minutes, the only problem is that each palm has a good 20-30 ft that needs to be cleaned off. Each tree has about 2 seasons of dead growth hanging down, and that is really what the customer wants out of there more than the skins. However it looks like I need to clean the old skins off first to safely spike up the tree, those skins have thorns and stick out about a foot from the trunk, tough on the body. I didn't want to spike it, but this is in a confined back yard, too tall for a ladder. I've lost one throw bag trying to set a line, the next line did come back to the ground, but no way could I pull a climbing line into it to do the STR method. The little thorns grab the heck out of the rope. I did all the other work and put these off until I return on Thrusday, hopefully with a better plan.
Right now I think I need to spike them starting from the top of my 16ft ladder, clean off all the skins as I go up, use the big thick buck strap instead of the rope flipline, and get ready to get dirty and hopefully not too bloody from the thorns. Someone give me the easy way to do this.
--By the way, these are the LAST Washies that I will ever trim.
Greg

 

[treeclimber165]

The last Washies I did, I couldn't get my lifeline through the head with the throwline either. I ended up making a monkey's fist with my lifeline, climbing to the top of the ladder, leaned way out on my lanyard and threw my lifeline over the top of the head. Then I came back down and secured the rope and climbed it SRT. It took me a while because I cannot throw a rope very well. I have no idea how I managed before the BigShot.

I hate it when I have to trim Washies that were not trimmed properly before. There is absolutely no excuse for leaving 12" thorny stubs when cutting off the fronds. I try to cut them behind the last thorn, leaving about a 1½" stub. At least the next guy won't have to deal with thorns where I've trimmed.

You might want to check the rental yards for a taller ladder also. If you can get up 35' on a ladder, it shouldn't be too hard to get a rope over the head. Cheaper than buying one for one job.

 

[Greg]

I'm going back to them this Friday ---putting it off and dreading it. If I didn't see a couple grand of more tree work that I know I'll get from this guy I wouldn't even be doing it. Take the good with the bad...I guess. By the way I just found out that I passed the test I took on 2/22 --- I am now a certified arborist!!
--ISA needs to get it together, 5 weeks for bubble in test results is way too long to wait.
Greg
ISA Certified Arborist!!!

 

[Greg]

I've thought about that, but I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to get the rope out if I could get it in. I'm going to take 1 shot at setting a line, if that fails I'll be a spiking fool!
Greg

 

[Ghivelder]

More photos here

 

[TREETX]

Cool pics. How much is that get up??

Nice pics - comment please

 

[monkeypuzzle]

TWENTY FRANKLINS

 

[TREETX]

That is a bunch of Benjamins!!

If you lived some place like Vegas, or where there are a lot of palms, seems worth it if they are fairly fast.

 

[Greg]

I went back and took care of the 4 palms last Fri, they ended up not being too bad. I gave up on setting a line and had to spike them. I had to strip off about 10-20ft of skins per tree, and then cut the stubs way down on the remaining skins/boots that wouldn't easily peel off, then got up top and cut out all the dead stuff. Only took about 20minutes per tree. Only saw one critter, a baby skink. For those northern arbo's, that is a lizard like creature very colorful, this one had a bright blue tail.
Greg

 

[jimmyq]

Northern Arbos

thanks for clearing that up, thought you mispelt skunk...

 

[Greg]

I did bring up a rope with the thought of rapping down, but was too worried about not being able to get my rope back. That is a great idea wish I would have heard that last week.
Greg

 

[Stumper]

Greg, You could also cinch a climbing line around the stem (Choked bowline for example) Tie a secondary line into the loop of your choked line, so that you can retrieve from the groundafter rappelling down.