What to Do With a Rotted Palm Tree Trunk

Toppling

• Palms with their leafy canopies missing and the telephone polelike trunk remaining should be felled. If the trunk is already rotting, the heavy trunk becomes unstable and may topple onto property or passers-by. Cutting down the rotting palm eliminates the immediate safety risk. In a natural area, leaving a stump may be appropriate, but in a garden or heavily used garden or lawn setting, cut the rotted palm trunk flush with the ground. Property owners may grind out the stump, creating a smooth area that won't cause a tripping hazard.

Prevent Disease

• A rotting palm trunk indicates various microorganisms or fungal pathogens are decomposing the dead plant tissues. Numerous plant diseases exist in palms. If don't know what killed the palm, don't keep it around. Ganoderma butt rot and lethal yellowing are two serious palm diseases. If either disease persists in the dead palm's rotting tissues, the disease may infect other plants, especially nearby palms.

Removal

• The comparatively rapid decomposition of a palm trunk does not make it a useful, rustic garden bench or picturesque landscape accent. It cannot be carved into interesting sculptures, as hardwood trees are. Coupled with disease issues, it's best to physically remove a rotted palm trunk from your property. If you're certain no disease exists in the rotting palm, drag it to a less-used corner of your yard to decompose. However, if you have other palms in the garden and you have disease concerns, pay to have the large, heavy trunk taken to the landfill or distant debris field.

Tips

• Do not use any debris from rotting palms as garden mulch. The mulch may contain diseases that proliferate in your landscape infesting other palms in the garden. Discard the debris in the landfill. Thoroughly sterilizing cutting blades with isopropyl alcohol, hydrogen peroxide or bleach solution prevents the disease's spread. Unclean saw blades and chains spread disease to new landscapes and plants, as they cut into fresh plant tissues.