Last Updated: · Written by Sunward Palm Coast Land Clearing
Pull out the trunks. Saw palmetto grows from a trunk that runs along or just under the sand, with the fronds rising from its tip, so cutting or mulching leaves the trunk to sprout again. Getting rid of it for good means grubbing the trunks and root mass out with a machine and leveling the ground. Where the area is a buffer or fire strip, cutting it low and recutting is usually enough. Sunward Palm Coast Land Clearing does both across Palm Coast and Flagler County, and we’ll tell you which suits your ground.
In short
- Palmetto regrows from its creeping trunk after cutting or mulching.
- Permanent removal: grub the trunks and root mass, then level.
- Grubbing costs more and disturbs more ground than mulching.
- For a fire hazard strip or buffer, cutting low and recutting is the usual answer.
Why it keeps coming back
Saw palmetto doesn’t grow like a shrub. Its stem is a thick trunk that lies along the ground or just under the sand, sometimes several feet long, branching and rooting as it goes. The fan-shaped fronds grow from the trunk’s tip. When a mulcher or brush cutter takes the fronds off, the trunk is still alive and sends up new ones from the tip within a season.
That is why a mulched palmetto thicket looks cleared for a while and then fills in again. The chips slow it, but the plant is still there.
Cutting it low
Cutting palmetto to the ground with a forestry mulcher or brush cutter is fast, cheap and leaves the sand covered. It is the right approach on a Palm Coast fire hazard strip, where the city’s rule cares about average brush height within 30 feet of a home, and in buffers and woods where palmetto is part of the understory. The trade-off is maintenance: the strip has to be cut again as it grows back, as the fire hazard guide explains.
Want it gone or just cut back?
Tell us what the area will be used for, and we'll match the method to it.
Pulling it out
Where the ground is going to become lawn, a garden, a pad or a driveway, palmetto has to come out. That is a grubbing job. We dig under the trunks with a grapple or an excavator bucket, lift them with their root mass and shake out the sand, then haul or grind the trunks away from the area, fill the holes and level the ground. On a building lot this happens as part of clearing and grubbing in the footprint; for a yard, it is scoped on its own.
Grubbing palmetto is slower and costs more than mulching, because there is far more below ground than above it and the sand comes up with it. It also leaves bare ground that needs silt fence, sod or seed, and on a Palm Coast lot the swale has to be kept clear while it settles. Burning the pulled trunks isn’t an option next to homes, so they are ground or hauled.
Which to choose
| Cut low or mulch | Grub out | |
|---|---|---|
| Result | Fronds gone, trunks regrow | Trunks and roots gone |
| Ground left | Covered with chips | Bare, leveled sand |
| Cost | Lower | Higher |
| Repeat work | Recut as it grows back | Little, unless seedlings return |
| Fits | Fire strips, buffers, woods | Lawn, garden, pad, driveway |
The mulching or clearing guide covers the same choice for brush in general, and what land clearing includes helps when comparing quotes that handle palmetto differently.
Palmetto as a keeper
Not all palmetto has to go. Clumps along the back line or a side lot make a native screen that needs no watering, and on a fire hazard strip only the brush within 30 feet of a home has to be kept low. We flag and fence clumps that stay like any keeper, because a tracked machine crushing the trunks can kill them, as the selective clearing page explains.
Before any of it
On a vacant Palm Coast lot, general clearing waits for the house permit, so pulling palmetto there is part of the lot clear rather than a separate job. Dry palmetto ground is also gopher tortoise country; we look for burrows before any machine works, and nothing goes within 25 feet of one without an FWC permit. Trees mixed in with the palmetto stay unless they have their own permit if they are 6 inches or more across.
After removal
Grubbed ground is planted or sodded quickly so it doesn’t wash. Palmetto seedlings can appear from seed for a while; they are easy to pull while small. The after clearing guide covers silt fence, sod and the swale.
Palmetto to deal with?
Send photos and what the ground is for next; that decides between cutting and grubbing.