Post #10132 by laney on Sun, Oct 6, 2002 10:02 PM

I have several dieing palm trees that I plan to carve. I was delt a blow to my collection of specimine palms-ganoderma. Anyone in Florida who knows palms at all, has heard of this lethal fungus. Studied at length at Universities and still no cure, stop in spreading, etc. This is basically AIDS for palms. While I love and collect tiki my greater passion is palms and cycads. I read the International Palm Society message board more frequent than TC. This deadly fungus has killed about 3 clumps of Mediterranian Fan Palms and 3 30'+ King palms. As it stays in the soil forever, I can never plant palms in affected areas, ever, and can only pray it won't spread to my back yard (home to about 50 mature, some rare, beauties). Many of my palms came with the house I bought and were planted in the 60's.
This has left me heart broken. If life hands you lemons, make lemon-aid.
This leads me to my questions. I cut one king down today with the help of an ex and took the chainsaw to it. I must say as a hung-over chick (Jimmy Buffet last night), I did pretty well. Almost cut off my foot and gave my ex a near heart attack!
But I didn't let the palm dry. It was and is very fiberous and wet. How long should I let it dry out. The pieces are about 3' tall. I know there are several carvers out there and I checked the other thread about carving but there was no info on palm woods. I'd also like to get the pieces carved and sealed (suggestions on sealants too) to avoing spreading the fungus. I'd love any info! Thanks!