PROOF that heeled palms dig down!

[BS Man about Palms]

I was up at Jerry Andersons closing sale a couple weeks ago and spied a palm I wanted. However it was sitting at about a 30 degree angle or more. A Dypsis sp. malcomberi had put roots through the heavy dg/rock floor, but the heel/base of the palm couldn't. I looked at the bottom and saw the heel/base had SPLIT the pot!! THAT is determination!! That is not a thin 5 gal pot either!!

I cut the roots in the ground and just recently potted it up. So far the new spear pushed about an inch since dig up. about 1/4" since repotting. Since I stand by my previous statements that heeled palms are slow to develop roots, I only potted up to a 7 gal pot. Will post the repotted pic soon.

 

THIS IS WHY I SAY PLANT HEELED PALMS HIGH! I mound plant generally 4-10" above soil line depending on size at planting......

[BS Man about Palms]

A quick pic now...in the rain!!! 

[Palm Tree Jim]

2 hours ago, BS Man about Palms said:

I was up at Jerry Andersons closing sale a couple weeks ago and spied a palm I wanted. However it was sitting at about a 30 degree angle or more. A Dypsis sp. malcomberi had put roots through the heavy dg/rock floor, but the heel/base of the palm couldn't. I looked at the bottom and saw the heel/base had SPLIT the pot!! THAT is determination!! That is not a thin 5 gal pot either!!

I cut the roots in the ground and just recently potted it up. So far the new spear pushed about an inch since dig up. about 1/4" since repotting. Since I stand by my previous statements that heeled palms are slow to develop roots, I only potted up to a 7 gal pot. Will post the repotted pic soon.

 

THIS IS WHY I SAY PLANT HEELED PALMS HIGH! I mound plant generally 4-10" above soil line depending on size at planting......

Scientific proof Bill!

Advice I have always followed by the way.....mound planting.

[DoomsDave]

Wow @BS Man about Palmsthat is quite the picture!

I had a Dypsis robusta do the same thing in a one gallon, except that it busted the pot wide open from the sides.

[Dypsisdean]

Further proof

My son had a D. "OCWS" that struggled for years and years, and he finally gave up on it since it never developed a new spear. So, he dug it up, removing what he thought was all the roots, and planted a Mad Fox in its place.

Now, after several more years he sends me this pic yesterday. It has resurfaced (although much smaller) a few feet away from where it was originally. This plant is now about 20 years old.

 

[Gonzer]

Proof? Proof?

 

[GottmitAlex]

4 minutes ago, Gonzer said:

Proof? Proof?

 

You want the truth?

[LJG]

Pretty sure they don’t “dig down”   It is simply the heel of the palm expanding as it ages and as it grows the depth is greater. If it “digs down”, explain how that works. Case in point. I have seen this same thing in Jerry’s palms (where you got yours) and Ron Laywers. Palms that sit in the same pot for many years have to deal with broken down soils. I am pretty sure the soil line was close the top when potted originally but over the years the soil decomposed away to the point the new soil line was halfway down the pot. The expanding heel has no where to go. Some palms have some really deep growing heels. I had a small Tahina spectabilis that I tried transplanting that I cut through the heel about 3 feet down!

I know you are a big proponent of plant them high. I myself have never planted a palm high. In fact I plant low now days. But that’s what works best for me. 

Deans palm can be explained by the very scientific palm term MattyB coined “deweezling”. Where the growing point for some reason pushes out the side or bottom of the heel.  

[BS Man about Palms]

5 hours ago, LJG said:

Pretty sure they don’t “dig down”   It is simply the heel of the palm expanding as it ages and as it grows the depth is greater. If it “digs down”, explain how that works. Case in point. I have seen this same thing in Jerry’s palms (where you got yours) and Ron Laywers. Palms that sit in the same pot for many years have to deal with broken down soils. I am pretty sure the soil line was close the top when potted originally but over the years the soil decomposed away to the point the new soil line was halfway down the pot. The expanding heel has no where to go. Some palms have some really deep growing heels. I had a small Tahina spectabilis that I tried transplanting that I cut through the heel about 3 feet down!

I know you are a big proponent of plant them high. I myself have never planted a palm high. In fact I plant low now days. But that’s what works best for me. 

Deans palm can be explained by the very scientific palm term MattyB coined “deweezling”. Where the growing point for some reason pushes out the side or bottom of the heel.  

I never know how much you are kidding me or have a different term than I use or what. First off, I "do" amend my "plant them high" motto if you KNOW that you have superior drainage to your soil. If it would take rains of biblical proportions to make water pool for more than a half hour in your yard, fine, plant them where ever you want. Your soil would then be airy enough to not cause a problem. (your place being mostly DG, Hawaii with all that Lava, etc.) However for those of us in clay that pool water and it stays for hours if not days, drainage is an issue, I still stand by my mound planting plan.

But as you say, whatever works for you..or whoever, keep it up. 

I include a poor pic of the palm "cradled" in its future 7 gal pot. I set it in there until I potted it up. I'm sure talking to Jerry that palm had not seen any significant care in years other than water. The soil was at best 3" from the top edge, what I would consider a normal fill. (I completely agree on plenty of half and third pot full plants out there. 

As for the "expanding"  point, my Jubea never went lower in my soil, it went wide and up, my Hedyscepe the same, my Clinostigma the same. Yet, the couple few times I planted some heeled palms the growing point continued to get lower in my soil. If that isn't "digging down", or "getting lower", I'm not sure what is. But hey, if every heeled palm you have ever planted level at your place went vertical from that point, I envy you. 

Maybe if I said heeled palms "expand down" versus "digging down" wouldn't the end result be the same?

[LJG]

Bill, there are plants in the plant world that actually pull themselves down to ensure they are not exposed. It’s a surviabilty trait. Heeled palms do not do this. If you swept away the soil line from a large heeled palm, it won’t be pulling itself down further like some plants actually do. This is what “digging down” means to me anyway, and since you always post that, I just wanted to point out I believe it is just a natural process of how a heel works. As the palm grows, the heel grows (the knee bends further), so the growing point is lower underground until some point the palm begins it march to the sky. Your post about “proof” towards something like how a heel works I guess didn’t make sense to me. Like “proof” the earth is round.

Also, I always get the feeling you have a belief heeled palms without human corrective measures (like planting high) would just commit suicide by “digging down”. I’m telling you mine do fine planting low. Also, I doubt most non-heeled palms would like the clay either. Not sure heeled or non-heeled matters as some heeled palms do great in clay - like sp. Bef. I would assume planting high for non-heeled would be of value in clay as well. 

By all means, keep planting as high up as your heart desires. There are no right or wrong answers in the palm world. Just live palms or dead palms. And you and I have had our fair share of both. 

[Moose]

Mound planting has worked on some of the "heeled" Dypsis here if Florida. Keep mound planting Bill, hate to see you go back to the time when nothing got planted! Poor things languished in containers and boxes for eons.

[Jono Miller]

Okay, I'm wondering about "heeled" palms in pots versus palms in the ground. First, I want to make sure "heel" and "saxophone" are the same thing -- a rounded portion of the young palm with roots on one side and leaves on the other.

There seems to be pushback against the notion that palms can pull themselves down into the ground, but naturally germinating palm seeds in the wild are probably not buried by very much soil. Yet, when I dig a baby "grass stage" cabbage palms up, the heesl/saxophones are progressively deeper in the soil as the number of leaves increases. In the accompanying photo, the black line represents the soil line. So what other explanation is there than that the palm heel/saxophone is somehow pulling itself deeper into the earth? While the mechanism may seem puzzling (How could a plant do that?) bear in mind that dicot trees routinely displace soil as their roots grow in diameter, so it can be done.

One explanation of the appearance of heels above the soil line in pots is that the soil levels drop due to oxidation, rinsing out, or whatever, exposing the "heel". But another explanation could be that, when grown in pots, palms don't have the grip they need to pull themselves downward, so they end up being pushed upwards? In other words, instead of having the ability to send anchoring roots deep into the soil, the potted palms can't really get a grip that would enable them to pull downwards. And one way to check that would be to ask: How often do we see the heel/saxophone emerge in palms that germinate and grow in the ground, rather than pots?

[Moose]

4 hours ago, Jono Miller said:

Okay, I'm wondering about "heeled" palms in pots versus palms in the ground. First, I want to make sure "heel" and "saxophone" are the same thing -- a rounded portion of the young palm with roots on one side and leaves on the other.

There seems to be pushback against the notion that palms can pull themselves down into the ground, but naturally germinating palm seeds in the wild are probably not buried by very much soil. Yet, when I dig a baby "grass stage" cabbage palms up, the heesl/saxophones are progressively deeper in the soil as the number of leaves increases. In the accompanying photo, the black line represents the soil line. So what other explanation is there than that the palm heel/saxophone is somehow pulling itself deeper into the earth? While the mechanism may seem puzzling (How could a plant do that?) bear in mind that dicot trees routinely displace soil as their roots grow in diameter, so it can be done.

One explanation of the appearance of heels above the soil line in pots is that the soil levels drop due to oxidation, rinsing out, or whatever, exposing the "heel". But another explanation could be that, when grown in pots, palms don't have the grip they need to pull themselves downward, so they end up being pushed upwards? In other words, instead of having the ability to send anchoring roots deep into the soil, the potted palms can't really get a grip that would enable them to pull downwards. And one way to check that would be to ask: How often do we see the heel/saxophone emerge in palms that germinate and grow in the ground, rather than pots?

Heeled, saxophone - they are the same

[tacobender]

My only heeled ones are dypsis lastenelliana, they seem to dig down alot. They are still fairly young.

[tacobender]

They shift away from the heel and grow from a lower point.