Please help my mom's mystery palms

[eizwein]

Hi! I live in the Seattleish area and have two potted palm trees out on my deck but don't know what kind they are. Someone gave them to my mom, she thinks about 6 years ago, and they've never done very well. We were talking about getting rid of them, but she's actually really disappointed and I know she'd be excited if they started to look better. Since I'm living here now I thought I'd try to help.

They've definitely been neglected and don't get watered often because she's out of town so much, but if there's anything else that would help we would really appreciate hearing it!

One of them also has some weird grass that grew in it and died and am not sure the best way to get it out...

 

[eizwein]

Pulled the grass out over the weekend. I don't think we go much of the roots out but the side that was against it was looking pretty bad so hopefully having it out will help a little? (assuming they aren't just hopeless by now...)

[Stevetoad]

Looks like a trachycarpus fortunei to me

[Fusca]

Agree with Steve.  Getting the weeds pulled out is a good start.  I'd plant them in the ground - should do well in the Seattle area.  You wouldn't have to water them as often as you would in the pots.

[eizwein]

I looked up some pictures and it looks like you're right about what type it is, thank you. I wish we could plant them in the ground but we don't have a yard !

[JLM]

You need a watering schedule and a fertilizer schedule. Most fertilizers go for about 3 months before having to re-fertilize. Definetly needs some fert. and water though! Once you get this down it should start to look much better over time! For looks you could also cut off only the dead fronds, if it still has green then dont cut it, either way totally up to you!

[Bismarckiafan]

My guess is the brown tips of the leaves are usually caused by too soggy soil.  When the roots are constantly in too wet soil at the bottom of a pot, the tips of  the leaves on a plant grow brown.  In my experience, the glazed terracota pots don´t allow the kind of desirable, healthy evaporation that you get in regular terracota or plastic pots, even though glazed pots look more stylish. I had one such pot and everything that I had put in it went downhill.  I would say the pots also look too big for such small palms.  It is actually a good thing that the palms don´t get watered too often, otherwise they would have been long dead by now.  The soil looks black or dark which is a sign there is no shortage of water but maybe rather too wet for too long.

I suggest that you take the palms out of their pots and check the roots to see if they are white/whitish, thick and healthy or squashy and decayed. If you see any decayed roots, trim them off.  Secondly, I would put a layer of gravel about an inch thick at the bottom to allow better drainage of the soil.  Thirdly,  I would  also reduce the amount of  soil in the pot according to how much soil has been filled with roots until now.  If there is a mass of unused soil at the bottom, you should put back only maybe two or three inches of soil at the bottom and do the same thing every year. When you grow things in a pot, you should step up the space for roots gradually in order to have healthy plants.   If you want to make absolutely sure the palms thrive in those pots, you could get those tall black pots made of plastic that nurseries use.  Make sure there are holes at the bottoms of pots  for good drainage.  Choose the size that would fit into your glazed pots. Plant your palms in the plastic pots and then put the plastic pots into the glazed ones.  When pots are not too big and there is good drainage, in summer you can even leave some excess water in the trays under the pots if the palms can´t be watered when they need it, that is when the top of the soil gets dry. In summer some palms actually don´t mind having excess water in the trays.

[eizwein]

Thank you so much for the advice, I'm definitely ordering some fertilizer.  I'm considering taking out at least the one with the grass in it, since I'd like to dig the rest of that out and will already be messing with it. Is there a good way to estimate what size pot to get so I have one ready for it?

[Bismarckiafan]

I think you are doing the right thing by planning to put in a straight plastic pipe-shaped pot. The glazed pots are oval and sometime in the future if you wanted to pot up the palm,  it wouldn´t be possible without either damaging the roots or smashing the pots. 

In order to choose the right size of a plastic pot,  try to measure the bottom diameter of the glazed pot because the bottom diameter can be a bit narrower than the top one.  You should estimate the inner diameter excluding the outer sides of the glazed pot.  Once you have worked  out the inner width at the bottom, you don´t have to worry about the height, take a plastic pot as tall as the glazed one.  In my experience, plastic pots shouldn´t be that expensive.  My last piece of advice is if you find out that your pot is too tall for your palm,  way longer than the palm´s roots,  plant the palm deeper in the pot leaving some space at the top. In the following years while repotting,  you can pull the palm out, add some more soil at the bottom and the palm will gradually build the desirable chimney-shaped rootmass and grow its way to the top.

[eizwein]

I was actually thinking of just putting them in new pots altogether if I'm already digging them up, I think visually they look kind of awkward in one twice their own size.