Freeze it with liquid nitrogen

Freeze it with liquid nitrogen

Freeze it with liquid nitrogen

How about a chain saw and cut them off at ground level?

chainsaw at ground level seconded. After that if any new ones sprout up you can take care of them with the lawnmower.

Or you could take a stick of dynamite and cram it near the trunk. Light it and run like hell! Ha ha ha! I am sorry-I couldn't resist.

Darell-East Texas

CHEMICALS! I thought I read somewhere that you are a "organic gardener"?

Chop the top off and eat the heart...it is called the Cabbage Palm after all. Then you can carve a totem pole out of the trunk.

slow73, you did correctly read, i garden organicaly as much as i can and it is my first choice...however, in this instance, i am watching three large and beautiful senensis(sp) being smothered to death from an invasive vine(skunk vine)...this vine is rampant from the woods at the edge of my property and the saw palmettos are being used as a bridge for the vines to get to the trees...i dont have a chain saw, i cant dig them up and dynamite is out of the question...bz

If your problem is skunk vine, why not kill the skunk vine and enjoy the native palm? The chemicals you are willing to use on the palm could be used to kill the skunk vine.

serenoa, sorry i dont have a digital to post pics...my property backs up to the greenway, a protected area that goes on for acres and acres as far as you can see and this noxious vine covers it all...i have cleared out the other perimeters of the property to make a buffer to manage the vine and keep it away from the lawn and plants...if the palmettos brush are gone i could see to manage that area too...bz

Round up Pro will kill them in 3 weeks and it will not hurt anything else if sprayed when you can let it dry 3 full hours after that it wont even matter if it rains. It stays put!

I too am battling those dreaded monster plants! True, mowing them does seem to wipe them out---except for the clumps growing around trees in my woods!! I have five acres I'm slowly endeavoring to transform into "yard" and would like to eradicate these places as they are an ideal nesting spot for snakes (which I hate!) I used the "new, extra strength" Roundup which is supposedly designed for poison ivy/oak (which I'm also fighting to eliminate) as well as other brushy plants, but so far have seen no results. Of course it's only been about four days so maybe I'm rushing things a bit. Thanks for the tip, tho. Er...ah...does anyone know anything that will kill these monster plants INSTANTLY?? haha just kidding.

Bring in some dry wood paper and a lil gasoline...and a camera to take pictures of the process for us!

You want to kill them, water them till it looks like a pond, they will rot and die if the site is in standing water for too long.. not sure if that is applicable to your situation I just know if killed mine a few years back

How about just pouring some clorine bleach directly where the roots are? That should do it. And cheap too.

How big are they? How about using a truck and pulling them out of the ground?

just heard of a new method to kill palmettos... haven't tried it yet, but fixing to. will letcha know how it works. But I was told if one sprays a few drops of diesel fuel directly down the plant onto the root it will kill them fairly fast.

pickling vinegar, 9% vs usual 5%, is available here on the same grocery store shelf, cheap. proposed as organic way to kill weeds. Drill some holes in the trunks and ground and pour in the vinegar.

or how about "burning" it with excess fertilizer?

Diesel fuel works if you pour it in the crown but it takes more than a few drops. I'm not sure if we are talking about a sabal palm or a serenoa repens but Diesel should work. There is some spray that kills them but I can't remember the name and it is hard to get.

PLEASE remember that name....the spray that kills palmettos! would love to get some!!

PLEASE PLEASE, anybody that has palmettos growing, just e-mail and I will send a "priority mail" box and the $ for shipping, and I will take as many as you can dig up.

Take your car (preferabally a compact) and drive into the clump. This should effectively take care of it, along with any uprooting.

I'd go at least 20 mph to be safe, however. But thats just me.

For you, I'd say go at least 80.

Haha Im just kidding. Isn't there something better you can do than upright kill them? I'd at least make money off of them.

Beezee,

I'll second flound on this....if you want them gone permanently, a chainsaw may be the only way to go. It shouldn't be too much trouble to find some place that rents them. If the palmettos aren't too big, you can pick up an inexpensive electric at Lowe's or HD.

I'll add one finishing touch. After cutting them down, douse the stumps generously with Ortho Brush-B-Gon. You might also try it on the skunk vine. This plant is a Category 1 Invasive Plant Species. But if the Ortho will knock out poison ivy and kudzu here, it may work on the skunk vine.

Right now, the best hope for control of this vine appears to be an insect native to Japan called a flea beetle.

Here is a link that might be useful: skunk vine/flea beetle info

You're all willing to drop those chemicals into our state's precious underground water supply??

I would contact your local county extension for a proper way to get rid of palmettos. I'm sure that they can recommend something.

Gasoline is the only thing that would kill them when I used it years ago, but that was before I realized what I was doing to the environment (15-20 years ago). I cut all of the fronds off and then poured the gas straight into the heart of it. It would die off in a couple of weeks. I'm going to try vinegar the same way, since I read that it lowers the PH of the soild but only temporarily.
As a native Floridian, the only way we deal with them is yes, to put a chain around them and yank them out with a truck; dig the whole entire trunk up, or chainsaw to the ground and continue to clip the green fronds that will start growing around it.
To the guy in Kansas, you can come to my yard and spend a couple of months digging every last one of mine up. I will be sitting in the pool watching:)

I would like to know how to get in touch with florida
_wannabe. If you read this or any1 who knows him/her please send me your/their e-mail addy to aquacfoam@yahoo.com. I have all of the palmetto roots you want.

Those of you who are wishing to kill the saw palmetto. This is what I read. First a warning the information that I am about to reveal if you do your research as one should always do and not take everyone's word for face value. If you saw the palmetto to ground level and then get a construction drill bit 5/16 that is 16" long drill holes in the stumb. Mix a 1- 1 solution of water and glyophosphate together. Get a funnel and a 1/4 " plastic tubing put said tubing in the hole of the stump and attach the other end to the small end of the funnel. Fill the holes with the solution. In a couple of months you will see the stump shrink in on itself. This mixture though is cancer causing. Made by Monsato as some referred to it as round up but in Vietnam we referred to it as agent Orange. It has just been diluted to go to lesser potent pesticide but still lethal over time.

florida_wannabe(Kansas) They are extremely difficult to dig up. I tried to move a few and it didn't work so I had to kill them with Round-Up.

I remived about a hundred of ruese dewaded palms with the bucket in my neighbor’s tractorchit. you start at the base and nudge, nudge, nudge nudge. sometiems rhe truck would travel horizontally undergorund for 10-12 feet. they are all gone after working fie a couple of weekends. The most difficult part was burning the stumps they are full of wtaer and actually started sprouting new palms while I was waiting for them to dry out in the large burnpile i created.