What's the Biggest Thorn You Have Seen?

[Porkbrick]

canary palms suck. ive lost count how many ive pruned, and how many times ive been stabbed. had an entire frond hanging off my leg like a giant meathook once. when i was first taught how to prune them i was taught to climb up into the crown to cut out the flowers. i soon said f%&k that and made myself a 4' polesaw to reach in from a safe distance. as bad as canary palms are, pygmy date palms are worse! they dont get very big but they have multiple trunks and the fronds are thorny to much much further out. it is impossible to get near one without being stabbed hundreds of times

 

[Bermy]

I think we can safely say that the Phoenix species of palm is on the... 'to hell with that' list...or... 'add $1000 just be-bloody-cause'

 

[Bodean]

The amazing Phoenix also triples it's brush somehow by the time it gets on the ground.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[MasterBlaster]

I've never been able to figure out how they do that. OR, they always get bigger between bidding the job and pulling up to do it. WTF???

 

[kevin bingham]

I love this pic. that palm head was heavy!

 

[Bermy]

Wow, what did that weigh?

 

[MasterBlaster]

Bet a nickel they didn't weigh it!

 

[Bermy]

Yeah...suffice it to say palm heads are HEAVY.

 

[kevin bingham]

it was somewhere in the way more than I can lift category

it was actually in the way more than I expected it to weigh category. I was very worried for a moment that I was going to collapse the 100 year old rusty conservatory.

 

[Bermy]

Mmmhmm! HEAVY

 

[vharrison]

canary palms suck. ive lost count how many ive pruned, and how many times ive been stabbed. had an entire frond hanging off my leg like a giant meathook once. when i was first taught how to prune them i was taught to climb up into the crown to cut out the flowers. i soon said f%&k that and made myself a 4' polesaw to reach in from a safe distance. as bad as canary palms are, pygmy date palms are worse! they dont get very big but they have multiple trunks and the fronds are thorny to much much further out. it is impossible to get near one without being stabbed hundreds of times

Do you trim the thorns off before trimming? That helps, take some hand snips up with you and cut the thorns off before you start reaching around to trim. LOL, beware of them once you are back on the ground though!

 

[Mick!]

30 odd years ago I was working on a farm in the Negev desert in Israel, we had to fertilise date palms with pollen.

This involved using a machete to try and access the stamen or whatever it?s called.

Even with thick leather gloves you?d spear your hands regularly, lots of pain, then the flies would arrive.....

 

[MasterBlaster]

Once when I worked on boat trucks in the gulf, there were several other boats nosed up to the canal bank waiting to get in the locks. There was a small shrimp boat next to us and my buddy and I were watching the crew throw the trash fish back in the water. Back then PPE and OSHA weren't real strong and everyone on the smaller boats ran around barefoot and just shorts.

Anywho, as the two of us watched one of those fellows stepped on a catfish fin and it went clean through his foot. Man, that fella started screaming like it was the end of the world!

So, beware of walking around shit like that even IF you're wearing boots...

 

[Nutball]

Looks like those thorns let you in and not out, blackberries are like that. I wonder why some plants have thorns going one way, and some going the other?

 

[Porkbrick]

Do you trim the thorns off before trimming? That helps, take some hand snips up with you and cut the thorns off before you start reaching around to trim. LOL, beware of them once you are back on the ground though!

I used to, not any more. I only wear thin gloves for the rat/bird shit. Move real slow, reach in at the very base of the fronds and and once you start pulling your hand out don’t stop or change direction. I found that thick gloves only give a false sense of safety. No gloves keeps your mind on task. All the thorns point towards the frond tips, you can pet the porcupine safely in one direction.

 

[kevin bingham]

I cut each frond twice, the outer half I cut and throw and you can throw it like a paper airplane and it will glide with pretty good accuracy. then I take the spiked portion. cut it at the base and that throws like a lawn dart. the heavy base, the really the dead fronds are the most dangerous.. the shorter pieces make it all more manageable both in the air and on the ground.

 

[Steve Mack]

I've done heaps of those things, price was never enough no matter how much I charged. And they'll get you eventually no matter what, even if you've finished. They went on the "No more" list a few years ago.

I used to have a few cops work with me on their days off, something I learnt from an old boss. Pays off sometimes.

One was in the Riot Squad, pretty hard bloke.

One day he threw a Canary Island palm frond under arm backwards and it caught him in the elbow and broke off. I pulled it out with a pair off pointy nose pliers. About the only time ever I've seen a well tanned person turn white.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Pain SUCKS!!!

 

[stig]

30 odd years ago I was working on a farm in the Negev desert in Israel, we had to fertilise date palms with pollen.

This involved using a machete to try and access the stamen or whatever it?s called.

Even with thick leather gloves you?d spear your hands regularly, lots of pain, then the flies would arrive.....

In 1975 I did a stealth climb on a date palm in order to steal some dates. Slipped and impaled myself on one of those thorns.
Still have the scar on my left biceps today.

Dates were good, though.

 

[Bermy]

My pal Holly now has to have an operation to clean out her knuckle joint that got infected from a CI thorn puncture. Over a month of treatment including IV antibiotics didn't shift it.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Lordy!

 

[SeanKroll]

We were killing invasive Canary palms in the desert spring behind the rangers' housing near Breakfast Canyon, Death Valley NP, about 15 years ago. A crew member decided not to wear work boots. Her shoe was cut off to remove it from the bottom of her foot.

An aside,
That ranger worked in Nepal in the Peace Corps. He said, after living in a 3rd workd country, your perception of danger changes.