3 Hours
That is how long it took the crew from the tree trimming service to trim up 15 cabbage palms and the two large oaks in front of the house. It was pretty amazing seeing the difference having four professionals with a chipper and chainsaw doing the work. I was outside for most of it weeding and then weed whacking the property. Using the chain saw instead of the loppers or sawz-all that I normally use allowed the trimmer to cut and shape the top of the tree in a much cleaner way. Using a gas powered chain saw while on a ladder would make me too nervous but the tree trimmer ripped through the work with amazing speed. They had a massively tall ladder that had to be at least 30 feet so even the very tall trees were easily reachable for the trimmer dude.
As fast as the guy was knocking off branches the other three guys were picking them up and tossing them into the wood chipper, making disposal of all of the debris so efficient. They saved the oak trees for last as they required the most work. I now understand why they cost much more than the cabbage palms. They did a nice job of lifting and cleaning out the interior of the canopy which was filled with knotted small branches. The trees looked so much better when they were done.
As they were starting on the last oak I asked the guy if they would be around for 30 minutes yet because I wanted to run a quick errand. He said he thought they would still be there. I wanted to get coffee but I also wanted to hit the ATM to get out some cash to tip the guys, even though I was paying over $700 for the service. Well when I was about 5 minutes away from returning home I saw the tree trimming guys already heading the other way, oh well. Overall it was a very positive experience and it definitely is the approach I will take in the future, possibly adding a couple more trees to the list.
It felt good to get the weed whacking out of the way. I plan on letting the property dry out some more today before hitting it with the mower over the weekend. On Sunday I will be meeting up with some EUC riders from the Miami area to cruise around Naples, should be a different way to spend a Sunday afternoon.