The Palm and Tree Master Plan: one written 10-year plan, one budget line.
A one-page brief for HOA, POA, CDD and ISD boards · Ptolemy · Southwest Florida and the Treasure Coast
Most communities buy palm and tree work one proposal at a time. The budget moves every year, every vendor bids a different scope, and losses arrive as unexpected expenses. A written plan puts the work that matters most first, safety first, and estimates each year’s cost before it arrives.
The problem
- Landscape maintenance covers everything up to about 12 feet. Tree service prunes and removes. Nobody is responsible for palm health.
- Four palm diseases have no cure once established: lethal bronzing, Fusarium wilt, Ganoderma butt rot and Thielaviopsis trunk rot. A community of a few thousand palms and trees can lose 30 or more in about two years.
- Unplanned removals, storm cleanup and disease response land mid-year, on no one’s line.
What one plan covers
Health care
- Every palm and tree mapped; size and condition graded where the service calls for it
- 4 scheduled visits a year (6 for homes)
- Monitor, Standard or Advanced, palm by palm
- Disease confirmed before any call, by the lab or a Ganoderma conk; lab fees at cost
Pruning
- Palms to the 9-and-3 line: everything below it off, nothing above it cut
- Seed pods taken before they drop
- Trees by written prescription to ANSI A300
- Sterilized handsaws where Fusarium is a risk
Removals
- Only after a certified arborist’s written determination
- Planned by size class, inside the budget
- Risk calls by the ISA TRAQ method
- Storm order of work written before June 1
How it fits the budget
- Count and gradeEvery palm and tree in one GIS inventory.
- Rank by risk and valueDisease hosts, high-value palms and trees over people first.
- Write the standardOne spec every crew and every bid works to.
- Pick a levelThe floor, Protect what matters or the full program, for each program.
- Plan 10 yearsAn estimated budget for each year, rebuilt from the count.
Where our pricing sits. Sabal palms (cabbage palms) are the palm we prune most, tens of thousands a year. Our sabal pruning averages about $27.50 a palm in HOA and master-planned communities, and about $34 a palm on golf courses. Palm health care typically runs about 2 to 3 percent of a community’s landscape maintenance budget. Your own number comes from your counts.
What the board receives
- A report after every visit, written to forward as is
- A quarterly report: inventory, condition against last quarter, watch list
- A findings update whenever a lab result comes back
- A yearly review: what was done, what changed, what is next
Questions to ask any vendor
- Who is your ISA Certified Arborist, and what is the number?
- Are you a licensed Florida pest control business (FDACS)?
- Do you test before you call a disease?
- Will you bid to a written standard we can compare?
- Is a second-opinion visit covered, or billed?
The goal: Normal, which means 80 percent canopy health or better, for every palm and tree, on a five-grade scale (Normal, Fair, Poor, Critical, Dead). A management target, not a guarantee. The timing: to reach next year’s budget, the plan should be in the manager’s hands between May and September.
Jeff Kaulbars, ISA Certified Arborist #FL-10118A · TRAQ · PPQ · 166,412 palms and trees in our GIS inventory
