Palm tree trimming - cost/recommendations? (San Diego, Kensington: how much, neighborhood, prices)

[lucillenyc]

Hi everybody,

We have some palm trees that need to be trimmed, including 4 very tall palms with tons of dead fronds. I think they are King palms and they are at least 2 stories high.

How much does this normally cost? I have people coming for estimates in a few days, but I want to make sure I am getting a fair price (and that I don't die of sticker stock!).

Does anybody have any tree trimming companies they can recommend? We are in North Park.

Thank you!

[sschibuola]

Sorry, no comps for you, but I'm interested in the same question as we have several palms on our property and they could use a good shave too.

One thing to pass on . . when we first moved in 2 years ago, a really nice old Canary Island palm was looking a little sickly . . .I didn't know a lot about them and did some Googling and got a little scared as it looked like a fungal disease which is fatal . . .called out an arborist and thankfully it wasn't the fungus, but I learned from him that the fungus is real, and is usually spread by cut-rate trimming services who don't sterilize their cutters after every job . . . so you may want to ask that question when you get your quotes.

[shmoov_groovzsd]

I would suggest calling Higuera Tree Services (just google them.)

While we dont have palms that big, we do have lot of palms ( pygmy to pyramid) and a range of exotics that require special care. Higuera were honest and straight forward as they all get trimmed different from one another.

Tough to find a bad review of them on Angies List, Yelp or Google.

I couldnt tell you the exact tree amount as we had it lumped with other services. But I am guessing it was around $400-500 of the total nut.

[lucillenyc]

Thanks, I actually have them coming in for an estimate tomorrow. So was that $400-$500 for all the palm trees together?

Originally Posted by shmoov_groovzsd

I would suggest calling Higuera Tree Services (just google them.)

While we dont have palms that big, we do have lot of palms ( pygmy to pyramid) and a range of exotics that require special care. Higuera were honest and straight forward as they all get trimmed different from one another.

Tough to find a bad review of them on Angies List, Yelp or Google.

I couldnt tell you the exact tree amount as we had it lumped with other services. But I am guessing it was around $400-500 of the total nut.

[shmoov_groovzsd]

Yes I would say around that price considering the other landscape work we had done. The total we had for the landscape work was $900 last year which boiled down to roughly half of that bill if not a little more.

I dont think they will mess around with you on the price. They were really up front and honest and I felt more confident with them than the others that came by (all things considered.) While they werent the cheapest, they werent hundreds more either. Plus they were able to do it quickly and efficiently. Clean up was great too.

[kettlepot]

I have nothing to add on prices, but I can from almost direct experience, offer this advice. Contact your neighbors with palms in need of trimming and offer a package deal to whichever service you work with. If you come in with a big project, you can negotiate a SUBSTANTIALLY better deal.

In Kensington, the neighbors got together, about 60 - 80 of them, and got the price per tree down to $50. But if it's just your 4 trees, $100 per tree sounds close to accurate.

And if this thing goes viral in the neighborhood, a lot of people will want to join in to get the good rate. You will be surprised how it really isn't difficult to get the needed numbers.

[earlyretirement]

Originally Posted by kettlepot

I have nothing to add on prices, but I can from almost direct experience, offer this advice. Contact your neighbors with palms in need of trimming and offer a package deal to whichever service you work with. If you come in with a big project, you can negotiate a SUBSTANTIALLY better deal.

In Kensington, the neighbors got together, about 60 - 80 of them, and got the price per tree down to $50. But if it's just your 4 trees, $100 per tree sounds close to accurate.

And if this thing goes viral in the neighborhood, a lot of people will want to join in to get the good rate. You will be surprised how it really isn't difficult to get the needed numbers.

Yep. This is a great idea that my neighborhood utilizes on annual tests that we all have to get. Things like annual backflow testing from the City of San Diego, we all ban together and get a package deal with a company that does that. It's totally convenient for him as he can hit all of them on one visit and at the same time and he gives us all a discounted rate.

[ShelbyGirl1]

Just spoke to a neighbor about this yesterday! She paid $80 a piece, but they were just done last year, so not a whole lot of dead fromms. Hers were Kings. She said she had 3 done...over 4 and it was discounted. LOL. We have over 150 various palms, including mostly Queens. Thankfully, right now we can cut our own.

[supagyrl88]

We had ours trimmed last year by crown point clippers. 5 queen palms, 3 mexican palms, and the cutting and stump grinding of a smaller canary palm. All for $450

[1AngryTaxPayer]

This is good stuff. I'm probably a couple of years away from not being able to trim it myself. It seems the more you trim it the faster they grow.