You are not suppose to prune anything above the bud. Also your tree gets much needed nutrients from the fronds and they should not be cut.

First what is the bud. Second i guess I should just bit the bullet and wait to prune even if the palm looks like hell.

The bud is the center part of the tree where the new growth comes out. I know its hard to look at the tree when it doesn't look very attractive but the end results of leaving the fronds on until they turn yellow or brown are great. When I first got my queens I wanted to prune it so it would look better. Then after doing alot of reading I learned to not cut the fronds for cosmetic reasons. Now my trees are doing great and look really nice.

I agree...do not cut any fronds from your Queen Palm until they are yellow. That's how you know when to trim. Make sure that you're fertilizing too. Manganese and Magnesium are essential to this palm to avoid frizzle top

You're not supposed to cut anything off that's green. Another rule of thumb is anything above 180 degrees from the top of the trunk. Anything hanging below that should be trimmed sparingly.

Hi
My Queen palm froze and all of the frons are brown. I have 1 small green sprat coming out of the center. should I cut all the brown frons off?
Thanks Don

I know this is an old post, but I have a quick question. I have two queen palms next to each other in the back yard over a walkway. One of them Grew to be much higher than the other and in fact it doesn't look good when its that high. I want to cut it so that they are the same size, is it possible to do this?

This would mean that all the fronds would be cut off. Would it grow them back or would it die? I would be cutting about 1/4 of the tree off, the highest part. Is this ok or no?

Here's an image to show what I mean... http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/212/100607queenpalm.th.jpg

Actually I'm cutting more than that off, if I cut it there it would just grow back the same size. In that picture it looks like 1/5 so more like 1/4. Again, that ok?

Do not do that Jon. You will kill your taller Queen Palm.