Cocos, bangalow, alexandra, foxtail, date and golden cane palms removed whole or sectioned over a pool. Frond and seed-head trimming too. Free same-day quotes.
Palms are the tree we remove more than any other in Brisbane, and cocos palms make up most of that. They were planted everywhere in the seventies and eighties, they grow far taller than anyone expected, and now they're dropping fruit on cars and seedlings into every gully in the catchment.
If you've got one you want gone, the job is usually simpler than removing a hardwood of the same height. Palms have no branch structure to rig and no spreading canopy to bring down in pieces. They do have their own problems, which is why it's worth using someone who removes them regularly.
Height and access do most of the work in a palm quote. Because there's no canopy to deal with, palms are often cheaper than a hardwood of equivalent height.
| Palm | Typical price |
|---|---|
| Small palm under 3m, easy access | up to $200 |
| Medium palm, 3 to 7m | $200 to $450 |
| Tall palm, 7 to 15m and above | $450 to $1,200+ |
| Restricted access, or a large date palm | quoted on site |
| Golden cane clump, cut and removed | quoted on site |
| Stump grinding, added to any of the above | from $80 |
Height, access and how many fronds need clearing are what move a palm quote within those bands.
The cheapest scenario is a palm with clear ground around it that can be felled in one piece. That's a fast job and the price reflects it. The expensive scenario is a tall cocos wedged between a pool fence and a house, where every section has to be cut and lowered on a rope with someone spiking up the trunk. Same height, three times the labour.
Multiple palms on one visit come down a lot in price. Most Brisbane palm jobs are a row of three or four along a boundary, and that's what we quote for most often.
The cocos palm, Syagrus romanzoffiana, is the one causing the most grief in Brisbane.
It fruits heavily. The fruit falls, ferments, stains concrete and gets walked through the house. Flying foxes feed on it, which means noise and mess at night through summer. The seed spreads into creek lines and bushland where the seedlings crowd out natives, and for that reason it's widely treated as an environmental weed across South East Queensland.
There's also a safety angle people don't think about. A cocos frond is heavy, the base is sharp, and the whole seed head can drop as one lump. If your palm hangs over a driveway or a play area, that's a real hazard rather than a theoretical one.
Because of its weed status, removing a cocos palm is usually straightforward from a council perspective. That's worth knowing if you're expecting a permit fight — check the current position on council permits and VPOs before you assume either way.
Tall, fast, heavy fruiter. The default removal job in Brisbane. Trunk is fibrous and holds a lot of water, so the sections are heavier than they look.
Native, slender, often planted in clumps. Lighter and easier to handle than cocos, and the ones in shaded courtyards get very tall and very thin, which changes how you climb them.
Similar to bangalow but with a more swollen base. Common in the eastern suburbs. Straightforward removal.
Thick trunk, dense crown, popular in newer landscaping. Heavy for its height. These often need to be sectioned rather than felled because of where they're planted.
The hard one. Enormous mass, sharp spines at the base of every frond, and a root ball that can be a metre and a half across. These almost always need machinery and they cost accordingly.
Not a single trunk but a spreading clump that keeps sending up new stems. Removal means cutting the clump out and getting the base out, or it comes straight back.
Very tall, often with a skirt of dead fronds. The skirt is a fire risk and a rodent habitat and it's the reason a lot of these come out.
Hardwoods get dismantled limb by limb. Palms don't have limbs, so there are only two real options.
Felling whole means cutting the trunk at the base and dropping it in one piece. Fast, cheap, and it needs a clear drop zone at least as long as the palm is tall.
Sectioning means a climber spikes up the trunk, removes the crown, then cuts the trunk down in metre lengths, lowering each one on a rope. This is what we do when there's a roof, pool, fence or garden underneath. It takes longer and costs more, and it's the only safe option in a tight yard.
Spiking is worth explaining, because it's the one technique that separates palms from everything else. You can't spike a hardwood you intend to keep, since the spike wounds let decay in. On a palm you're removing, spiking is standard and causes no problem at all. That's the opposite of how we work on a tree lopping job, where the tree is staying.
Very large date palms and anything overhanging a structure with no rope path sometimes need machinery. We'll tell you upfront if that's the case, because it changes the price significantly and it needs the street organised beforehand.
Not everyone wants the palm gone. Plenty of jobs are just cutting off the dead fronds and the seed heads.
That's worth doing annually on a cocos if you're keeping it. Take the seed heads off before they ripen and you eliminate the fruit drop, the flying fox visits and the seedlings, without losing the palm. It costs a fraction of a removal.
Frond trimming is also the fix for a Washingtonia skirt. Once that dead material builds up it's a fire hazard and it houses rats, and it needs a climber to deal with because it's usually four or five metres of matted fronds.
What we won't do is cut a palm back into the crown to make it shorter. Palms grow from a single growing point at the top. Cut that out and the palm dies. There's no such thing as reducing the height of a palm. If it's too tall, the only option is removal. If a frond or seed head has already come down on something, that's an emergency call rather than a booking.
Palm stumps behave differently to hardwood stumps and it's worth knowing before you decide what to do with yours.
They're fibrous rather than woody, so they rot down much faster than a gum or a camphor stump. Left alone, a cocos stump will be soft in two or three years rather than ten.
But they're also very dense and very wet, which makes them harder on a grinder than the equivalent hardwood. And the root system on a mature date palm is a solid mass rather than spreading roots, so full excavation on those is a genuine dig.
Most people grind the stump at the same visit as the removal, because the machine is already there and it's the cheapest it will ever be. Details are on our palm stumps and stump grinding page.
Most palms don't need approval. Brisbane City Council's vegetation protection applies to significant native trees and to specific listed trees, and a cocos palm in a suburban front yard is neither.
There are exceptions. If your property has a Vegetation Protection Order over it, if you're in an overlay area, or if the palm is a native species of some size, it's worth checking. We check the status as part of the quote and we'll tell you if approval is needed before we book the job in.
Palms are removed by climbing, and climbing a palm is a specific skill that has nothing to do with climbing a hardwood. There are no limbs to work off, the trunk is the only anchor, and spiking technique is what keeps the climber attached to it.
We do palms constantly, mostly through the eastern suburbs where the seventies plantings are thickest, so this is routine work rather than an occasional job. It matters more here than on most tree work that the operator is insured, because so many palm removals happen in tight front yards two metres from a neighbour's car. Ours is $20 million public liability, and a Certificate of Currency is available on request.
We look at the drop zone first and decide fell or section on the spot, even if we already know from the photos. Ground conditions change after rain and a drop zone that worked in July might not work in February.
Fronds and seed heads come off first and get chipped straight away, because they're the messiest part and they're what blows around if you leave them. Then the trunk, either in one piece or in sections.
Cocos trunk doesn't chip well, so it goes out on the truck in lengths rather than through the chipper. That's just how it is with palms and it's factored into the quote.
Site is raked and blown down before we leave. Palm jobs make a distinctive mess, lots of fibre and small fruit, and it needs proper cleaning up rather than a quick rake.
The palm work splits cleanly by suburb. Bulimba, Hawthorne, Balmoral, Morningside, Cannon Hill, Coorparoo and East Brisbane are where the big cocos and alexandra palms are, planted in the seventies and eighties and now fifteen metres tall in yards that were never designed for them. Those are the sectioning jobs.
Further north through Carseldine, Fitzgibbon, Taigum and Bracken Ridge the plantings are newer, so it's more foxtails and golden cane clumps, and more of them per property.
Send a photo of the palm with the house or a car in the shot for scale, tell us your suburb, and you'll usually have a price back the same day.
Send us a photo and your suburb. Most quotes go back the same day, and there's no obligation.
Small palms under 3 metres are at the bottom of the range, up to around $200. Medium palms of 3 to 7 metres typically run $200 to $450. Tall palms of 7 to 15 metres and above range from $450 to $1,200+ depending on height, access and how many fronds need clearing. Several palms on one visit are much cheaper per palm.
No. Palms grow from one point at the top of the trunk. Remove that and the palm dies. Height reduction isn't possible on a palm, which is different to how hardwoods work.
Usually not. Most ornamental palms including cocos aren't protected. If your property carries a Vegetation Protection Order or sits in a protection overlay it's worth checking, and we do that check as part of the quote.
Fruit drop, flying foxes at night, staining on concrete, seedlings spreading into bushland, and falling seed heads. Cocos is widely treated as an environmental weed in South East Queensland, which is why so many are coming out.
Yes. Cutting the seed heads off before they ripen, once a year, deals with the fruit, the flying foxes and the seedlings. It costs a fraction of a removal and it's the right call if you like the palm.
A straightforward fell is under an hour. A tall cocos that has to be sectioned over a pool takes half a day. A large date palm needing machinery can take a full day.
Fronds and seed heads get chipped. Trunk sections go out on the truck, because palm trunk doesn't chip cleanly. Everything leaves the site unless you want the mulch.
Yes, and it's cheapest done at the same visit. Palm stumps are fibrous and rot faster than hardwood, but they're dense and wet so they still take a proper machine.
Yes. That's what sectioning is for. The climber takes it down in metre lengths on a rope rather than dropping anything. It costs more than a straight fell but there's no risk to the structure.
Much harder. Canary Island date palms in particular have enormous mass, spines at the base of every frond, and a root ball that often needs machinery. They're the most expensive palm to remove by a wide margin.
Yes. Golden canes send up new stems from the base, so cutting them at ground level doesn't work. The clump has to come out, or it regrows within a season.
Yes. Bulimba, Hawthorne, Balmoral, Morningside, Cannon Hill, Murarrie, Norman Park, Coorparoo and East Brisbane are all regular territory, and those older gardens are where most of the big cocos palms are.
Call 0474 011 120 or send a photo through the form. Most palm quotes come back the same day.
0474 011 120
info@budgettreeremoval.com.au
0474 011 120