When we fist ever saw Forestdale I was amazed at this fantastic suburb with all its trees. How green and leafy it looked. We came from Melbourne where other than the Dandenong ranges I don't think there's a suburb anything like Forestdale.
The thing that appealed to us in the house that we bought was that it had heaps of palm trees. We thought perhaps that was because we're in Queensland. Although the previous owner told us that he had spent thousands of dollars planting palms. We thought we were getting a bargain.
What we did not realise is that most of the palms are not native to Queensland or Australia for that matter and definitely not native to Forestdale.
None of the surrounding areas of Foestdale has palms.
Not only were there lots of palms on our block but a lot of them were Cocos palms. Big tall palms.
When we've been here for a while we noticed some of the Cocos palms frons were starting to drop. As it was a bit of a drought time my wife thought it was due to a lack of water so start watering them. The frons continued to droop, so she fed them with dynamic lifter.
At one stage our septic started to block up. A Cocos palm was right near it. My wife was adamant that she did not want it to be removed because it was a big plant. The sort of thing, in Melbourne, that would take years to grow. The plumber reckoned it was a weed. We had never seen weeds that big.
We later found out that this drooping of frons was what just naturally happened with these plants.
We went out and purchased a good solid mulcher to get rid of the Cocos palm frons.
But as the Cocos palms got ever so larger it became impossible to mulch the thicker part of the frons. Ther was also that the Cocos palms were getting so tall that we could not cut off the ugly drooping frons, even with a extendable pole saw or when up a ladder.
No doubt because we had use dynamic lifter in the past, the Cocos palms were growing great guns. But also we're multiplying. They had seed pods so big and numerous that they would fill a full size wheelie bin.
We decided we were fighting a losing battle. Over a period of a few years we cut down 130 Cocos palms. Because of all the moisture in them they wrecked chainsaw blades,and the electric chainsaws we were using.
We would have done hundreds of trips to the tip to get rid of what we were cutting down.
With all the Cocos palms now gone, and so not soaking up all the precious water, all the other palms started growing a lot quicker. Especially the golden cane palms. Although they did not have as thicker palm frons as the Cocos palms they still did drop frons, either on the ground, often stuck up in the palm it self. They also seen the clump out and become bigger.
Going around our property,now each week I would collect over 80 litres of Palm frons and seed pods.
I now I realise that basically we have a farm. On a normal farm, the farmer collects produce and sells it at the markets. With our farm all that grows has to be collected and it actually cost money to dispose of it.
It's actually like a reverse farm
So what is the solution?
We could cut down all or thin out the palms. But that in itself would be very time-consuming and expensive. And what would we replace them with? It would also only be a short term solution, unless they are removed completely eventually get back to the point where they are at now
Suggestions?