The magnificent Palms of Malta

[Steve Mac]

Are they just lazy pruners? No. Are they completely stupid? No.

Do they know what they are doing? Yes. Then why?

Well Malta is a fishing island and they use the leaves to float and attract and catch fish.

Commonly dolphin fish, not to be confused with the mammal.

There is no debate there what is more important.

[CYPALMS]

Steve hi,

i live in Cyprus, mediterranean island just like Malta. I can take hundreds of photos of overpruned Washingtonias and Phoenix palms, but here we dont do it for fishing. The sole reason this is done here in Cyprus, is the high cost to prune regularly those fast growing palms. For a 30 - 50 ft washingtonia, you need to hire a lift truck which costs 80$/hour and if you dont have the proper tools, also hire a gardener to prune it for you which will cost another 100$. Add to that the stripping of the trunk which takes quite some time and you have a cost of 200-300$. Now imagine doing that once a month, it would cost you a fortune. So what people are doing here is they wait for these species to flower and then hire somebody to prune them up to the last unopened leaf, strip the trunk and cut off the flowers also. This is done once a year. I remember i had read in an academic article that as a rule of thumb, palms shouldn't be pruned unless a leaf drops below the horizontal level (its petiole of course). But money is hard earned and those palms seem to have adopted to this kind of treatment.

George

[Phoenikakias]

Spot on Farkonis! Those long time proven spss seem to tolerate such pruning... until lately but now such wounds are a first class invitation for rpw!

[Harry]

I think over-pruning a palm is encoded into municipal gardeners DNA.

The silly excuse I have heard all too often from all these "experts" is that "everyone
is doing it so it must be the right thing to do" and that it "promotes faster growth".

Talk about mass ignorance!

[greekpalm]

"municipal gardeners DNA"

hahaha good one !

[Steve Mac]

Thanks for the info guys, I just spoke to a few of the fishermen then I was there for a short holiday.

to these guys it was just a resource, to take at will, other people and councils obviously have their own reasons too.

[Kris]

first of all thanks for the visuals.but it was painful to see over trimmed palms.and wish to see more stills of cidp from your part of the world.

thanks & love,

kris.