Palm tree removal
Palm tree removal in Brevard County
Palms do not come down like oaks. There is no canopy to strip, but the trunk is a single heavy column, the root ball is a dense mat instead of a taproot, and a dead one is brittle all the way up. We take them down in sections, load them with the grapple, grind the stump and the surface roots, and leave a bed you can replant.
Office hours are Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm. Estimates are free and in writing.
- 30+ years in Brevard
- Licensed and insured
- Stump and roots included
- 30+years in Brevard
- 10,000+trees removed
- 1,000+acres cleared
- 500jobs a year, on average
Companies that have had TR on their property
Commercial grounds, storm response and hazard removals on active sites.
Why is it coming out?
Six reasons we get the call.
6 of them
01Dead or dying
A palm with a collapsed crown or a hollow-sounding trunk is a hazard. It gets brittle, and the top can drop as one piece.
02Too close to the house
Planted three feet from the wall by a builder, now lifting the walk or scraping the eave.
03Over the pool or the cage
Fronds and seed pods in the water every week, and a trunk leaning over the screen.
04Leaning after a storm
A palm that shifted in saturated ground does not straighten. We take it down before the next one.
05Making room
A drive extension, a new fence line, a lot being cleared. The palm goes, the stump goes, the ground is ready.
06Costing too much to keep
Queen palms and Washingtonias need trimming every year forever. Sometimes the cheaper answer is removal and a replant.
We own the equipment most crews rent, and the companies that hire us for it include Boeing, Amazon and Lowe's.
A palm is one heavy column with a mat of roots. That changes the whole job.
- 01
There is nothing to strip.
An oak comes down limb by limb. A palm has a crown of fronds and one trunk, so the work is in the trunk: how it is cut, where it falls, and how it is lifted. Most of the price is in the last two.
- 02
The trunk is heavier than it looks.
Palm trunks are fibrous and hold water. A section that would be light in pine is dead weight in a cabbage palm, and a tall Washingtonia trunk is well beyond what a crew moves by hand. The grapple truck does the lifting.
- 03
The root ball is a mat, not a tap.
Palm roots spread as a dense fibrous mass near the surface. That makes the stump easier to grind than a hardwood's and the ground easier to replant, but the surface roots have to be ground too or they resurface as the bed settles.
- 04
Dead palms are brittle from the crown down.
Once the crown has collapsed, the top of the trunk can let go under a climber's weight. We work dead palms from the lift, and we cut them shorter.
- 05
Disease is the reason more often than people expect.
Lethal bronzing and Ganoderma butt rot are both in central Florida, and both kill palms from the inside. A palm that is browning from the bottom fronds up, or has shelf fungus at the base, is one to look at before it is a hazard. We will tell you what we see; confirming a disease is a job for a plant pathology lab, and we say so.
How a palm comes down.
Crown off first.
Fronds and seed heads cut and loaded so the trunk is a clean column.
Trunk in sections.
Cut in lengths the grapple can lift, from the lift on tall or dead palms, from the ground on short ones.
Grind the stump and the mat.
The stump and the surface root mass are ground below grade so the bed can be planted or sodded.
Haul and fill.
Trunk and fronds leave on the truck or go to mulch. The hole is filled and raked. Nothing is burned on site.
Our equipment
The three machines that turn a palm removal into a clean bed.
Palms are heavy, wet and fibrous, and the roots are a mat. These three deal with each of those.
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01
Grapple truck
- On the job
- Lifts trunk sections and whole fronds into the bed and hauls the same day.
- Why it matters
- A cabbage palm trunk section is a two-person lift at best and often not that. The grapple moves it without dragging it across the lawn.
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02
Stump grinder, large and small
- On the job
- Grinds the stump and the surface root mass below grade. The small machine fits a bed or a side yard; the large one takes a Washingtonia base.
- Why it matters
- Palm stumps are the easy kind to grind, but the root mat around them is not optional. Left in place it lifts the sod and the walk.
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03
62ft Imer boom lift
- On the job
- For tall Washingtonias and any dead palm, where the top cannot be trusted to hold a climber.
- Why it matters
- Dead palms fail at the top. The lift means nobody is standing on the part that fails.
The loader carries sections through a side gate on backyard removals. Full fleet on the equipment page.
See all equipment and vehiclesWe service all of Brevard County.
- Cocoa
- Cocoa Beach
- Melbourne
- Merritt Island
- Mims
- Palm Bay
- Rockledge
- Titusville
We will travel further in Florida for the right job. Ask.
321-504-1054What people ask before a palm comes out.
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Cut it down in sections and grind the stump and the surface roots. Palms cannot be killed and left standing safely, because a dead palm gets brittle and drops its crown. Digging one out by hand is possible on a small palm and miserable on anything else.
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Some can. Cabbage palms transplant well when they are dug with the root ball intact and handled in season, and we can talk through whether yours is a candidate. Most removals we do are palms nobody wants anywhere.
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Usually less than a hardwood of the same height, because there is no canopy to rig. What moves the number is trunk height and weight, what it is standing over, and whether the stump is included. Several in one visit cost less each. Estimates are free and written, and the pricing guide explains the factors.
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Yes, and on a palm the roots matter more than the stump. The root mat sits near the surface and lifts sod and pavers if it is left. We grind both below grade so you can plant or sod.
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Yes, after the grindings are cleared and the hole is filled with soil rather than mulch. If the old palm died of disease, we will tell you what we saw so you can decide what goes back in.
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Older fronds yellowing at the bottom can be normal or a nutrient problem. Fronds dying in sequence from the bottom, or a crown that droops all at once, can be lethal bronzing or Ganoderma. We will tell you what we see and what to do next; a lab confirms disease, not a tree crew.
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Yes, and it is the one to call about soonest. A dead palm's trunk weakens from the top. We work them from the lift and cut them short.
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It depends on the city. Some Brevard jurisdictions treat palms differently from hardwoods, and some regulate by trunk size. Check with your city; we will tell you what we have seen on similar lots.
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Healthy ones, usually: they bend and shed fronds. Dead or diseased ones are not, and over-trimmed ones lose the protection the crown gives the bud. If the question is which to keep, read the trimming page.
Get a written estimate on the palm.
Send a photo of the trunk and what it is standing near. We quote the removal, the stump and the bed, in writing, before anything is cut.
Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm. Emergency and storm calls are prioritized ahead of routine work.