Yes, you can prune a palm tree with a chainsaw, but a chainsaw is overkill for a job like this. You risk damaging the tree if you make a bad cut. More commonly, you’ll need pruning shears or a serrated knife to trim a palm tree, or you can use a specialized pruning saw instead of a chainsaw.

No. Topping a tree refers to severely cutting down all its major branches and tree in a straight line. It was once recommended for streetside deciduous trees but has fallen out of practice. Topping leads to many problems, removing so much of the tree that many trees struggle to survive and become much more vulnerable to insects and diseases. Also, it doesn’t really help tree growth as once assumed and often leads to an ugly appearance of many sprouting stems in competition to become new main branches.

For small trees, tree removal should take just a couple of hours to complete. Assume that a mid-sized tree will take between four and eight hours, depending on the extent of the equipment required and the health of the tree. Remember to add up to two hours for stump removal. Larger trees could take as long as one or two working days, about eight hours each.

It can be bad to leave a dead stump in the ground. A stump becomes a hefty piece of dead wood in time and eventually (especially with the help of rain) starts to rot. That makes it a locus point for diseases and pesky insects, as well as a bit of an eyesore. It’s best to remove a tree stump completely before it starts to decay, especially before it starts to fall apart. If the tree was removed because of disease, it’s even more important to fully remove the stump if possible.