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yabazid

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I'm in rural Sumter County, 40 miles due east of Columbia, SC.  I moved down from NJ almost 15 years ago, and I've had mixed results with Windmill palms. My property is mostly a flood plain, but I find palmettos and Butias like the wet feet and grow well.  I've planted numerous Windmill palms over the yrs, with mixed, perplexing results. My tallest is about 13 yrs old, and 10' tall.  It flowered(don't know if that's the correct term) this spring and is growing beautifully. Another I planted only about 15' away and on higher grown, grew great for about 5 or 6 yrs, then suddenly up and died on me. In fact I've had at least 5 or 6 that grew like crazy and suddenly up and died.  It takes several yrs for them to die.  I've noticed the newly emerging fronds get progressively smaller and smaller.  When that begins to happen, they all eventually die.  I thought the culprit may have been that they weren't well drained enough, but I've had 2 die on high well drained soil.  There's a stream on my property with a swampy area leading to it. About 12 yrs ago I planted a windmill in the swamp, along with lots of needle and dwarf palmettos.  One of those dwarf palmettos turned out to be a regular palmetto, and the fronds are quite large.  It gets only a little dappled sunlight, but it's growing none the less.  My windmill planted across from it in mud has also grown well the past 12 years. So I don't think poor drainage is the issue.  Those growing in damp, poor draining soil look very robust and happy. I'm 65 yrs old, and I don't protect anything, because I don't grow out of zone palms. I noticed at the Florence Mall, in Florence, SC, some were planted in the parking lot landscape, and they suddenly died too.  I'll bet they had been growing at least 25 yrs, long before I moved down. I noticed the same thing in the town of Sumter.  Windmills that were already well established when I first moved down are now dead. I now have 6 left that look great and are growing rapidly. I don't know how much longer they're going to grow, because I can't figure out what's causing them to suddenly start their slow decline.  I'm now growing baby palmettos in containers, because they seem to love my damp flood plain.  In summer and fall, the flood plain gets dry, but the palm roots are still wet.  I'm also growing live oaks, magnolias, oleander. crepe myrtles, azaleas, and camellias in this damp soil and they love it.  They're all growing super fast. I'm in eastern Sumter County, and the soil is dark and rich with sand below - no clay.  Has anyone had a similar experience with Windmills in the SE, zone 8a?  I have ground voles, because my rural location is their turf.  Could ground voles be slowly killing some and not others. BTW, I don't fertilize.  There's no need to.  I'm sorry, I probably should have started a new thread.  I'm too lazy to start all over.

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11 hours ago, donnacreation said:

I'm in rural Sumter County, 40 miles due east of Columbia, SC.  I moved down from NJ almost 15 years ago, and I've had mixed results with Windmill palms. My property is mostly a flood plain, but I find palmettos and Butias like the wet feet and grow well.  I've planted numerous Windmill palms over the yrs, with mixed, perplexing results. My tallest is about 13 yrs old, and 10' tall.  It flowered(don't know if that's the correct term) this spring and is growing beautifully. Another I planted only about 15' away and on higher grown, grew great for about 5 or 6 yrs, then suddenly up and died on me. In fact I've had at least 5 or 6 that grew like crazy and suddenly up and died.  It takes several yrs for them to die.  I've noticed the newly emerging fronds get progressively smaller and smaller.  When that begins to happen, they all eventually die.  I thought the culprit may have been that they weren't well drained enough, but I've had 2 die on high well drained soil.  There's a stream on my property with a swampy area leading to it. About 12 yrs ago I planted a windmill in the swamp, along with lots of needle and dwarf palmettos.  One of those dwarf palmettos turned out to be a regular palmetto, and the fronds are quite large.  It gets only a little dappled sunlight, but it's growing none the less.  My windmill planted across from it in mud has also grown well the past 12 years. So I don't think poor drainage is the issue.  Those growing in damp, poor draining soil look very robust and happy. I'm 65 yrs old, and I don't protect anything, because I don't grow out of zone palms. I noticed at the Florence Mall, in Florence, SC, some were planted in the parking lot landscape, and they suddenly died too.  I'll bet they had been growing at least 25 yrs, long before I moved down. I noticed the same thing in the town of Sumter.  Windmills that were already well established when I first moved down are now dead. I now have 6 left that look great and are growing rapidly. I don't know how much longer they're going to grow, because I can't figure out what's causing them to suddenly start their slow decline.  I'm now growing baby palmettos in containers, because they seem to love my damp flood plain.  In summer and fall, the flood plain gets dry, but the palm roots are still wet.  I'm also growing live oaks, magnolias, oleander. crepe myrtles, azaleas, and camellias in this damp soil and they love it.  They're all growing super fast. I'm in eastern Sumter County, and the soil is dark and rich with sand below - no clay.  Has anyone had a similar experience with Windmills in the SE, zone 8a?  I have ground voles, because my rural location is their turf.  Could ground voles be slowly killing some and not others. BTW, I don't fertilize.  There's no need to.  I'm sorry, I probably should have started a new thread.  I'm too lazy to start all over.

Hello donnacreation

To be honest I am not sure what could be killing your palms, a few pictures would help if you could them here. I can tell you from my experience that windmills and sabals don't mind being wet almost all the time, and actually thrive more than anything. 

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  • 1 year later...
On 12/21/2015 at 11:40 PM, yabazid said:

Thank you guys for the great replies.Hydrogen peroxide was my best friend through their recovering year.

I planted the jubaea in my backyard. Its too precious to plant it too exposed. I built over head protection of clear plastic to protect it from too much rain/freezing rain before I left overseas.

Btw most of these pics were taken by my friend back home

I have a trachy going through what appears to be similar transplant shock. How did you use the hydrogen peroxide on yours?

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