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Should I wait for Palm Sunday?


Mauna Kea Cloudforest

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I started to clean up a mongrel blue phoenix reclinata. it's different from other reclinata species in that the fronds actually are glaucus blue, so I suspect it's a reclinata x dactylifera or reclinata x sylvestris. I was originally going to remove it entirely, but I decided to to see if cutting out some of the suckers and giving it a good trim would make it look good. And the answer is yes, it's simply amazing how a giant formless bush suddenly turned into a real nice graceful clump of palms.

It was hard to cut off actual growing crowns of fronds, but necessary. And after doing half of it, I realized it generated a massive amount of waste that included a lot of really good quality fronds that are in high demand on Palm Sunday, which is this year falls on April 13. Should I wait until Palm Sunday to do the rest? Do any of you wait until Palm Sunday to do major phoenix trimming?

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Have seen several reclinata but none of them were glaucus blue. Looks like a beautiful color on that species. Bet there are not too many of them around.

Your post reminds me of a very large Prichardia 'reclinata' that Mike and I saw at a local nurery about a year after we started purchasing palms. The nusery owner, who traveled alot, called it reclinata as a joke. It had fallen down while he was away and ended up with the 1st 5' or so on the ground and about 10' growing upwards. It was stunning and the owner wanted $50 for it. An amazing price for Kona. We were stupid and didn't buy it because we had just started planting and thought we didn't have any place to plant it. A couple of months later we found a spot for it and went back to buy it. It had been purchased (for a lot more money) by a professional landscaper. We still kick ourselves for that.

Lee

Lee

Located at 1500' elevation in Kona on the west side of the Big Island of Hawaii.

Average annual rainfall is about 60"; temperature around 80 degrees.

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If its reclinata x dactylifera it will be one nasty barrier. Like an expanding, suckering barb wire fence, only the barbs will be 3" and sharp... I had a nasty suckering reclinata hybrid in AZ, most dangerous palm to trim ever. I was stabbed so many times by leaflet tip and spines that I will never own any palm with reclinata blood again. Every time I tried to trim the new suckers I was stabbed by the larger overhanging foliage... Now when I trim my 4 species of livistonas I think: "no problem, those spines aren't bad". As for as the cuttings, doubt you'll make any friends giving those away....

Formerly in Gilbert AZ, zone 9a/9b. Now in Palmetto, Florida Zone 9b/10a??

 

Tom Blank

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If its reclinata x dactylifera it will be one nasty barrier. Like an expanding, suckering barb wire fence, only the barbs will be 3" and sharp... I had a nasty suckering reclinata hybrid in AZ, most dangerous palm to trim ever. I was stabbed so many times by leaflet tip and spines that I will never own any palm with reclinata blood again. Every time I tried to trim the new suckers I was stabbed by the larger overhanging foliage... Now when I trim my 4 species of livistonas I think: "no problem, those spines aren't bad". As for as the cuttings, doubt you'll make any friends giving those away....

I was able to trim the first half without getting stabbed. gloves and a good saw make it easy. The thorns are no bigger thsn any of my other reclinata, glad the thorns are there, otherwise it would be full of rats. In Florida you would have them full of water rats without the thorns.

I was very aggressive in bringing down the suckers, it maked a big difference and makes them easier to trim later.

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Axel, a picture please of your reclinata x dactylifera hybrid! You are so lucky; I do not have the luxury of waiting for Palm Sunday here, I have to do all trimming while rpw is still asleep.

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Axel, a picture please of your reclinata x dactylifera hybrid! You are so lucky; I do not have the luxury of waiting for Palm Sunday here, I have to do all trimming while rpw is still asleep.

Thanks for pointing this out, you reminded me of the disease issues, and it is actually a good reason to do the pruning now and not wait for Palm Sunday, as we are experiencing record low humidities. As soon as I am done pruning, I will take a photo. You'll see the before and after.

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If you have a fireplace, they make the best kindling, after Rosemary . . .

Let's keep our forum fun and friendly.

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No before and after shots? :(

"it's not dead it's sleeping"

Santee ca, zone10a/9b

18 miles from the ocean

avg. winter 68/40.avg summer 88/64.records 113/25

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  • 3 weeks later...

Owfully sorry, it is an abbreviation used mainly by British and other Europeans meaning Canary Island Date Palm, but actually I wanted to write dactylifera.

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