Seperating multitrunk chaemerops humilis

[palm789]

Hi i just got my palm i ordered and it came as a multitrunk and i am Ok with the look but prefer it single trunk.

Is there a way to seperate all the other trunks there is about 4 around the main trunk in the middle of the pot and also a few baby ones forming? its between 80-120 cm tall in 15liter pot. so its about 3 to 4 foot in height including pot.

 

If there is a way of doing this can anyone provide me with instructions/ illustrations on how to do this.

I am new to gardening and this kind of stuff i have the john innes no 2 soil also ready.please help thanks.

[Kostas]

Post a photo to get a view of what you want to deal with. Sometimes the pot is multiplanted with more than one seedlings and other times its a clump arising from a single plant. If its multiple plants(you can check that by carefully digging to find the connection between the different trunks/stems. If there is no connection, then its just tangled roots holding them together and with some care(and a well guided axe or saw, you can obtain individual footballs for the different plants. If its one plant, you could  cut off the adventitious growing points coming off it but it would be better to just plant it in half shade/ with competition, which will allow the central trunk to grow considerably more than the pups, especially if the pups are much more shaded than the central stem's crown/leafs

[palm789]

I will take a photo in the morning to show you.from there you can tell what is what before i made the big altering decision.so if it is planted with multiple plants how do i tell or what would the connection look like? or if it is clumped then can i remove the other two palms that are joined to the main big trunk? i dont plan on keeping any seedlings etc to propagate from as i have a few palms enough for my small garden,then i got little shoots i want to remove,how can one remove those also.Also some the fan shaped leaves are broken so do i remove a whole frond down to the trunk? please message back.thanks.

Edited September 15, 2015 by palm789

[palm789]

Ok here is the pictures,

[palm789]

and this is the other picture,now i need to know if its possible to seperate the smaller trunks from the big one in the middle,without killing the palm,so i can have only the main single trunk palm in a pot, 

[Pal Meir]

It does NOT look to me like one multiple plant with suckers, but like three separate individual palms.

[palm789]

it got a few shoots growing with a leaf? maybe thats the sucker.

[Pal Meir]

A suckering Chamaerops would look like this one:

[Neil C]

It does look like three separate plants unless the main stem has died and been chopped right down to the base. Separating the three plants would be possible but there would be some serious root untangling to do.

 

Regards Neil

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

I have killed every single sucker that I tried this on.  I have been very successful with Trithrinax and brahea clumpers, but never a med fan.

[Pal Meir]

If you would live in New South Wales, the season for dividing the three separate palms would be ideal. But as you live in Old South East Wales, you should better wait till next spring :-)

And suckering Chamaerops can only successfully be separated if they are big palms with tall adult suckers having their own root system. Even with suckers like in the palm of my photo above it would not be successful.

[palm789]

Okay i checked the rootball and cut off the small growing shoots,but the 3 big palms i could not seperate at all they were stuck together solid.alot of small thin roots were breaking off the rootball and i am also worried if that will kill the plant,so whats next.

Edited September 17, 2015 by palm789

[Pal Meir]

Post photos of the roots and the lowest part of the trunks.

[palm789]

okay will do when i am back home in about a hour.

[Phoenikakias]

You do not have to untangle any root mass and thus dissolve the root ball! Just pull the whole root ball out of the pot and, if it is totally bound, just SAW apart from each other the three individual plants taking care to leave for each plant an equal amount of root ball. Spread prior separate potting up each root ball with coal powder. If this is the way you will ultimately choose, DO NOT transplant to a bigger pot and of course wait for next late spring.

[palm789]

You do not have to untangle any root mass and thus dissolve the root ball! Just pull the whole root ball out of the pot and, if it is totally bound, just SAW apart from each other the three individual plants taking care to leave for each plant an equal amount of root ball. Spread prior separate potting up each root ball with coal powder. If this is the way you will ultimately choose, DO NOT transplant to a bigger pot and of course wait for next late spring.

what about the little small roots covering the rootball i noticed they break ever so easy even by touching them it breaks,there are also some bigger ones which i would leave alone ,so if i was to seperate them how do i go about avoiding killing the plant because of the small thin roots.

Edited September 17, 2015 by palm789

[Phoenikakias]

If the root mass is big, it does not matter that much the destruction of some portion of it. What I described, I had myself perfomed many times with always success! Important is a big root mass and timing (that is late spring).

[palm789]

okay i had to repot the plant anyways as the cheap pot that came with it split in the shipping process, anyways should i leave this until spring then and then try and seperate all 3 palms that are in one pot.okay from the looks of it all so it looks like all the 3 palms are connected to one rootball it does not look like 3 palms put into one put as i have a yucca plant with 1 tall yucca and 1 small and now if i move that pot the yuccas move seperatly as if i can remove either one from pot very easily,but not with this chamaerops humilis  they are stuck on solid to the rootball the only thing i done so far is prune off broken fronds down to the trunk and prune off the new growing plants/suckers if they are that are emerging from the soil and trunk.

What you think?

[Pal Meir]

Pull the palms out of the pot and post one ore more detailed photos of the rootball. – Palms can’t be compared with a yucca, they and specially their root systems are totally different.