Slow Palms

[ruskinPalms]

Hello,

This is my first post here since the board crashed. I was formerly known as pyropipe. I tried to re-register the name but it would not let me post with it - guess I activated it wrong. Anyway, I like this new username better for this board.

Several of my palms that I just planted this spring in April either look really bad or are not growing fast or both (with a few exceptions). Not sure what the problem is. Some background: this is a new house in a new development and the soil is this weird compacted sand/clay/seashell junk with seemingly bad drainage and poor fertility, no over head canapoy to speak of, all of these palms were potted - moved to my mother's house in venice for the winter - frosted on the 14th of Feb - moved to the new house before they were planted. They have recieved irrigation about twice a week and el cheapo fertilizer once since in the ground. OK, with that info, please tell me what is the problem and how I might be able to hasten their recovery and increase their growth rate.

First:

This foxtail has not opened a new frond since it was put in the ground in april. Spears on each plant have moved some what. One looks like it may open but may be stunted.

[ruskinPalms]

Second:

This royal has not opened a new frond, but is finally pushing a spear - slooooowwlly

[ruskinPalms]

third:

Struggling coconut palm - did grow a stunted leaf after being planted and is pushing a new spear now.

[ruskinPalms]

Its struggling friend with similar results....

[ruskinPalms]

Fourth:

What once was a triple Archontophoeinx Cunn. now is a double...Both a have grown new leaves once and both have a spear pushing. Original leaves were absolutely fried. New ones showed somewhat less sunburn but still burned. These may not be appropriate for this full sun location on the west of the house.

[ruskinPalms]

Now some good news:

Triple V. Arecina at end of april:

Now:

[ruskinPalms]

More Good news:

April:

Now:

[DoomsDave]

Hmm.

Whereabouts in FL is Ruskin?  Near which big city?

If any . . .

dave

[Mike Evans]

I would at a minimum, get rid of the grass around a large area of the palms, and mulch w/ pine bark.  Your palms are still small, and it looks like they are competing w/ the grass.

[ruskinPalms]

Dave, the Zip Code here at my house is 33570. Ruskin is a bit south of Tampa, FL. Rated zone 9B. Not a developed area at all (yet).

Mike,

I wanted to get rid of the grass and put down mulch but my wife said she likes the grass, so that is a no go at the moment. I may be able to sneak in a little mulch though. Pine you say?

[redant]

You need to have a word with the wife  

I looks much better to have a nice circle of mulch around the palm.

Use good fert, not the cheap stuff.

[ruskinPalms]

Redant,

I will be heading out tomorrow to get fertilizer and mulch. The palms will mysteriously have mulch rings around them by the time my wife gets home from work  :laugh:

[MattyB]

Bill, if you get some border material you can make a nice little circle to mow against.  Remove all the grass within the circle and mulch deep.  That way it looks nice and it's easier to mow around.  As far as the slow growth goes, I think your palms are suffering from being grown under shade cloth and now you have them in full sun.  They look nice and tall when you buy them because they are stretching for the sun.  Now they are confused and it usually takes a growing season for them to acclimate.  I've noticed that even the first new spear/leaf formed completely in sun is stetched also.  Then the second is better, and the third is right on.

[SubTropicRay]

Nice stuff.  Ruskin has a great microclimate.

[BobbyinNY]

Ruskin,

I definitely agree with Mike... Lawn grass devours so many nutrients that it's probably robbing the palms of all of them - especially if the grass has been there for awhile - the soil probably has nothing left.

[ruskinPalms]

OK, I took everyone's advice and ripped out some of the sod and put down pine bark mulch and fertilzed with what I think is decent fertilizer (not too sure though).

Left side of back yard:

Right side of back yard:

[Trópico]

A word about the soil. My house is a few years old and if I dig about 1 ft down I always strike concrete rocks and all kinds of leftover cr#p from construction surrounded by foundation construction sand, and it gets heavily compacted the closer I dig to the house. No matter how much I ammend with manure, the top layer goes back to white sand after a few heavy rains. This is our Florida soil, and our palms have to adapt to it.

As far as your palms, they will pickup speed after about a year. Right now they are working on their root systems and learning to put up with our unforgiving sun rays.

Oh, I just noticed: being that close to a retention pond, how long does it take for water to drain?

[ruskinPalms]

One of my triple V. Arecina with mulch:

Another single Archonto. Cunn. (also was very burnt but is now growing decnet fronds):

[ruskinPalms]

Put about 1/2 cup of fertilizer down around each Palm (I have no idea if that was too much or too little). Brand was Lesco from Home Depot. It said it was for palms.

[ruskinPalms]

Ray, I hope you are right about Ruskin being a good microclimate as my whole yard will be coleslaw if we have a bad freeze  

[ruskinPalms]

Frank,

I don't really know the answer to your question, but I have planted immediately following a thunderstorm and 1 foot deep hole would have about 6" of water standing in it not going anywhere too fast.

Yes, I have found the most amazing junk when digging out here: huge shells, rocks, bottles, cans, left over construction tidbits - no gold yet.

[ruskinPalms]

While on the subject of slow palms, just wanted to note that in this  triple grouping of baby foxtails, one of the palms has opened a new frond already and I think I planted it only at the beginning of this month before some of the big rains. Do the smaller, younger palms acclimate quicker than large sizes? (comparing the larger double foxtail in the back yard to this smaller triple)

[SunnyFl]

(ruskinPalms @ Jun. 29 2006,17:06)

QUOTE

Yes, I have found the most amazing junk when digging out here: huge shells, rocks, bottles, cans, left over construction tidbits - no gold yet.

Ruskin,

Sounds as if you have the same situation we had in our (miserable) front yard.  That compacted shell-stuff with bad drainage sounds like old road-bed - we had that here.  Only torpedo-grass would grow in that spot (formerly used as the "driveway").

It was backbreaking shoveling that stuff out and I didn't get all of it - there was too much.  But I amended with a lot of peat and potting mix as well as garden soil, so it drains okay now.  I've had my 7-foot roeb, hibs & crotons in there for a couple of years now, and they're fine.  The only thing that really didn't work was the baronnii, but that was a full-sun issue, not a soil problem.  The lutescens is quite happy there.

Ruskin is really 9B?  I could swear I saw a latania of some size when I was over there last spring - may have been mistaken, though, since I saw it from the road.  Nice community, though - much less crowded than St. Pete, and so much friendlier.

[spockvr6]

(SunnyFl @ Jun. 30 2006,08:30)

QUOTE

Ruskin is really 9B?  I could swear I saw a latania of some size when I was over there last spring - may have been mistaken, though, since I saw it from the road.  

I think it depends on exactly where in Ruskin one is.  It is much like any area that is close to a large body of water in that there are certain dividing lines where the climate seems to notably change (based on what is seen growing where).

When I have driven down that way, it seems that, roughly speaking, much east of US 41 gets realtively cold relatively quickly.  There are also a few FAWN stations out that way and these logged into the 20's on Feb 14th.  But, I am sure areas further west of these stations stayed well into the 30's, and maybe even close to/above 40F right at the Bay.

This is not so different than Pinellas where we have the same (and probably more so) drastic variation on cold nights.

[spockvr6]

(ruskinPalms @ Jun. 29 2006,17:01)

QUOTE

Ray, I hope you are right about Ruskin being a good microclimate as my whole yard will be coleslaw if we have a bad freeze  

It looks like youve got alot of yor tender stuff near the house.  This will help tremendously, if not so much with regard to absolute temperature, but with regard to frost.

[Walter John]

That's not the mulch I would use, (pine bark chips blah), they'll start taking away soil nutrients faster than putting them back in. Still, your fertiliser should compensate, but I'd still consider some other mulch, even sugar cane mulch.

Your younger foxtails will develop better than the other stringy ones. They'll grower truer, (that's how I describe it) and faster. This is my experience anyway.

Good luck and what did the missus say about loss of lawn ?

[ruskinPalms]

As far as the zone rating for ruskin, I have to only go by the USDA maps and be conservative becuase I have not yet spent a winter here at this location. Our house is a little over 2 miles to the WSW of the NWS in Ruskin. I know they usually record some cold temps there every winter. I think the coldest they recorded there this winter was 31 F on Feb. 14th. I am guessing at best since this house is a litte bit closer to water (retention pond behind house, very close to little manatee river and related estuaries, Tampa Bay and on a larger scale the Gulf of Mexico) that the temperture was a degree or 2 warmer. As far as the plants here growing in the area - well, people are not too adventurous around here. In the older neighborhoods it does seem to be ficus heaven though with several large ficus elastica and ficus benjamina with arial roots and all. I have seen several large dypsis lutecens, a couple adonidia, everyone seems to have a plumeria of some sort growing around their house, fruiting bananas and papayas (but don't they only need a couple good years to fruit?), a couple of decent adolescent royals on the bayou, decent majesty palms here and there, and I think I even saw a decent coconut back in a trailor park. One home owner even has a couple of large traveler's palms with a couple feet of wood trunk though the leaves look ravaged by wind. I don't know if these observations indicate anything better than 9B though, guess I will have to get a hi lo thermometer to start my own records at our house.

Sunny,

So far Ruskin has been a pleasant place to live off the beaten path but I think that is changing quickly. There is a massive amount of development planned for the area.

Wal,

I think the HOA wants us to use pine bark mulch. I liked the looks of the cypress mulch but figured I needed to match the other mulch already here. Besides, I will be fertilizing. By the way, any guidlines for fertilizing anyone wants to pass along?

[Patrick Palms]

can any one give me some good tips on the bottle palm? watering? full sun or not? does it need to be sheltered if wind cold? does soil temp matter? In costa blanca very warm, but winter drops to 15c, which is ok, but its the night temp that worry me 5c....

This is my vavourite palm of all...

[Patrick Palms]

Also another palm i like is the Hyophorbe verschaffeltii X lagenicaulis F2

Silver Lady Palm

A fabulous cross between the Spindle Palm and Bottle Palm, uniting characteristics of both parents in an extra heavy trunked, fast growing plant with a beautiful silvery crownshaft.

[singingquail]

Washingtonia seedlings. I have several hundred washingtonia seedlings from

seeds in peat pots. Good soil with fertilizer. It took several months to get the second leaf. They seem to be growing very slowly.  They did not seem to like full sun so I moved them to more shade and they seem to prefer it. Anyone with experience know what growth rate I can expect? Any suggestions?

[redant]

Bill, if you still have that bag of lesco around I'd like to see a pic of the front of the bag. The palm formula they sell here had no (MN) which I find to be very strange. The one by me is a 13-3-13 I think. Yours is an 8-10-10 which is not the best mix for palms from what I have read. Lesco is good stuff except they don't seem to make a great palm formula IMO. Your bag had great micros but the basics are off. Mine the basics are in the right ratio but the MN is missing.

Amount of fert is dependant on palm size. Most of the ones your size 1/2 cup every other month in the summer would be great. As they grow you will need to add more, I find doing less then recommended but more frequently is better for sandy FL.

[ruskinPalms]

Full Frontal...

[ruskinPalms]

Redant, actually I grabbed this fertilizer because it had the Mn and Mg. I have learned from this board that these are lacking in Florida. I also use some ultra cheap crap fertilizer for the grass that is like 29-3-4. Not sure what the numbers mean exactly but this fertilzer gets scattered on the palms as well... I was just mostly concerned with the micronutrients when I bought hte Lesco stuff and it seemed to be a balanced blend anyway unlike the grass fertilizer.

[Kathryn]

Bill,

The mulch added at the base of the palms looks nice. All you have to do now is extend the mulch out a few inches every few months, she'll never notice as the palms grow and eventually you will have full beds and less mowing.

Kathryn

[ruskinPalms]

Some updates on growth so far this seaseon:

V. arecina

[ruskinPalms]

Archontophoenix sp.

[ruskinPalms]

Bismarckia

[ruskinPalms]

Archontophoenix sp.

[ruskinPalms]

Group with W. bifurcata, D. lutescens, A. Merrillii, C. nucifera...

[ruskinPalms]

Another angle: