Do You Have a Saw Palmetto?

[FloridaFlamingo]

Yes, I have saw palmettos, at least 150 dense square feet of them,  the original "clump" about 100 years old.  I need to stop the sprawl toward a property line. 

After reading here how hard it is to kill them, I thought I would just sawzall around the the fringe of the "stand"  to delay the fronds from over-reaching their bounds.   Is it as much a pain with a sawzall as a chain saw, as one member said above about a chain saw?   If okay, what kind of sawzall blade would work best?  Is there a better place on the stalk to cut, like ground level?

If I ever needed to kill the entire stand, what about surrounding the entire stand with a cage topped with sunblock material stretching across the top and down all four sides, the material touching the "walls of fronds" so as to block sun and air?   I'm in no hurry.   Thank you from St. Pete Florida.     

[BeyondTheGarden]

@FloridaFlamingo pics???

[aztropic]

I've grown and sold quite a few of the silver variety from seed. They are slow,but definitely another bullet proof option to grow in the Arizona desert. Mine are just starting to flower again,right now.

 

aztropic

Mesa,Arizona

[FloridaFlamingo]

Jessie, here are some pictures, taken from the sunniest side, shadiest side, flowering side, and an overgrown access point.  The palmettos are about 6' tall all around.  (I noticed a Cherry Laurel rearing its ugly head as I was taking one of the pics.  I need to get in there and get rid of it while it's small -- again.  That's the only tree that has invaded the stand. ) 

 The dead fronds of the palmettos have only been trimmed once in at least 44 years, because I was told that if I continue to trim off the brown,  they will grow into trees, so I thought it best to leave them be.  Luckily, the Cherry Laurel is on the sunny side that I need to Sawzall.  Pic "SawTrunkOne" shows the main stem of one palmetto from where the frond stems are spraying.  That stem is about 1.5 feet from ground to the top of the stem's fronds.  I have no idea what variety of saw palmetto mine is.   In fact,  as I write this,  I realize mine have no saw teeth, so maybe they are some other kind of palmetto but they do have berries.    Thank you for any light you can shed on my sawing question and for anything else I could learn.  

         

[FloridaFlamingo]

Jesse,  the first pic is the overgrown access point,  SawTrunkOne is the second picture., shadiest side the third, and sunniest side is the fourth picture.    

[NickJames]

I feel lucky now to have a wild patch on both my main home in Osteen and my lot on Pine Island is covered in them. 

The ones at my main home are green variety. 

at my last home, I actually tried to plant silver ones from containers and lost about 40% of them. 

They are beginning to flower now and I’m going to keep an eye on any seed thieves….

[D Palm]

Yes, snakes will hang out in them in N. Florida. Which may be why they are not common in landscapes. 

The racers and coral like to zip out when I got by with the riding mower. When I walk near it I pay close attention due to this. 

[Walt]

My tallest clump of saw palmetto used to be taller, but my four tallest palms died a few years ago. I took the below photo about a week ago when I was trimming dead fronds from it.

[FloridaFlamingo]

Walt,  I've attached some flowers here,  taken a few days ago.   Do you have flowers on yours like my pic?   Do you know the name of your palmettos?       

[Walt]

2 hours ago, FloridaFlamingo said:

Walt,  I've attached some flowers here,  taken a few days ago.   Do you have flowers on yours like my pic?   Do you know the name of your palmettos?       

Yes,  my Serenoa repens (saw palmetto) have similar flowers as yours. The clump in my photo is native to my property.  I also have 15-20 silver form Serenoa repens.

[FloridaFlamingo]

I've attached this morning's picture of a clump within which is growing a cabbage palm, if it is indeed a cabbage palm?   We didn't notice the "cabbage palm" until it rose above the fronds.  Also, a pic showing no teeth on the frond leaflet.  No stems have ever grown horizontally from the clumps.  From my view of your pic, it looks like a stem is growing along the ground out of the left side of your clump, although I see no fronds growing on it.   It looks like you keep your clump really nice and neat, so I'm guessing that what I see on the left is a horizontal stem coming out.

Here's a partial copy-over from a USDA plant base:

"TAXONOMY:

The scientific name for saw palmetto is Serenoa repens (Bartr.) Small

(Arecaceae) [10].  There are no recognized subspecies, varieties, or

forms [24]."

So now I'm not sure that what I have is a saw palmetto after all.    

 

 

[jons0027]

just found some of the silver ones at a local nursery in central VA. not cheap, but seeing something like that here, of course i had to make that impulse buy! gonna give it a try in my zone 7b garden. some sources say they are hardy down to z 8, other z7. will report how it does if i remember!