When to trim your flowering palm trees

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If you're wondering what those pods that are opening up on your palm tree are doing, they are flowering. And just like all flowering plants, your palm trees do this every year, and sometimes they do it twice a year.

This palm is a Phoenix roebellini, a dwarf date palm. So it wants to make dates. You know, the gooey brown fruit that is sometimes used to make shakes. Not that this is a variety that produces edible dates, but it's a relative. So it flowers, pollinates and fruits. That means that it will do what most flowering plants do, attract birds and bees.

Actually wasps. This type of palm tree attracts wasps while in flower, so it's best to stay away. The wasps aren't interested in you, unless you go in there and startle them. So leave them, and your palm tree, alone for a few weeks. The flowering will end and then will be the time to trim the flowers off.

So, sit back, enjoy the flowers, enjoy the nice weather here in Phoenix in October and leave the trees alone. When the flowers are finished they will shrivel up, won't attract wasps anymore, and it will be safe to trim them.

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