Palm species · Washingtonia robusta
Washingtonia & Mexican Fan Palm Trimming in Northwest Florida
The very tall skinny ones with a skirt of dead fronds. That skirt is a genuine fire risk, and height is what makes these a specialist job.
Identifying it
The tall ones along the beach roads
Washingtonias are the slender, extremely tall fan palms you see lining coastal roads and hotel frontages. Mexican fan palms grow fast and get very tall — well past sixty feet — on a comparatively thin trunk.
The signature is the skirt: dead fronds that do not drop but fold down against the trunk and hang there, sometimes for the full height of the palm. Left long enough it becomes a dense thatch.
That skirt is why these come up so often. It harbours rats and wasps, it sheds debris in wind, and it is genuinely flammable. A dry Washingtonia skirt next to a building is a fire risk worth taking seriously.
What matters on this species
Height changes everything
A sixty-foot Washingtonia is not a ladder job. It needs a lift or a competent climber, and access for equipment becomes the main factor in what it costs.
The skirt is a fire and pest issue
Dry thatch against a trunk near a structure is a real hazard, and it is prime habitat for rodents and wasps. This is one of the few cases where removing dead material is genuinely urgent rather than cosmetic.
They outgrow their setting
Planted as a feature by a single-storey house, a Washingtonia will eventually tower over it. Worth thinking about before planting more.
Our approach
How we trim Washingtonia palms
We remove the dead skirt and any spent flower and fruit stalks. Live green fronds stay — the crown on these is relatively small for the size of the palm, and it cannot spare much.
On tall specimens access decides the method. Where we can get a lift in, that is safest and quickest. Where we cannot, it is a climb. What we will not do is spike a palm we are not removing.
Debris from a full skirt removal on a tall palm is a surprising volume. Hauling it away is part of the job rather than an extra.
Questions
Washingtonia palms — common questions
Do I have to remove the skirt?
Not for the palm’s sake — it is not harming it. But near a building it is a fire risk and a rodent habitat, and most people want it gone for those reasons rather than looks.
How tall do these get?
Mexican fan palms commonly pass sixty feet here and keep going. That height is the main driver of what the work costs.
Can you reach mine?
Usually. Tell us roughly how tall it is and what the access is like — whether a lift can get to it — and we can tell you the approach before quoting.
How often does the skirt need doing?
Every year or two for most, depending on how tolerant you are of the look and how close it is to a building.
Are they cold hardy here?
Mostly. A severe freeze will burn the crown, and inland is riskier than the coast, but they are hardier than a queen palm.
Other palms
More palm species we work on
Sabal palm (cabbage palm)
Florida’s state tree. Boots, and the myth about removing them.
Chinese fan palm
Drooping leaf tips and a reluctance to shed cleanly.
Queen palm
Fast, messy seed pods, and cold-marginal here.
Bismarck palm
Enormous silver fans. Heavy, and marginal in a hard freeze.
Skirt getting out of hand?
Free estimates across Bay, Walton, Gulf and Okaloosa County. A photo usually gets you a price faster.
“…The team parked on the street, professional and did a great job.”