Soil

[Sabal King]

This is one of the things that cracks me up about any hobbyist and in this case us palm people.  Everyone overcomplicates everything.   Don't waste your money, time, and effort amending dozens of cubic yards of soil (special circumstances certainly can exist) because by and large you do NOT have to.  I'll give you my example and experiences here.

I used to live in NW IL and the ground, when you dug into it, was well, top soil, it was decent dirt.  You can stick anything you want straight in and have success.  I've grown dozens of fruits trees, grapes, vegetables, vines, you name it, I grew it.  Water, some simple MG granule, maybe slow release for your particular plant you're growing and away you go.  Don't forget compost and mulch... keep it simple.

Fast forward to moving down to North Texas here in the DFW region.  I'm working on a dozen plus fruit trees of varying varieties, flowers, vegetables, and of course my palms.  I am 90% sabals (currently over 200+ in the ground with another 200+ more to go before I'm done), trachys, BxJ, and more than I care to remember and or list.  Our ground when I got here, I realized it just absolutely awful.  Like barren.. I couldn't imagine anything would live here.  It's a combination of either compacted dirt that has been here since the beginning of time which you cannot shovel though or normally, it's blue\grey clay.  It's awful.... I trenched a few hundred feet of drainage pipe last year, and when you hit the ground under the grass, you can just hear the sucking sound of water, and peeling clay away.   It weighs as much as a pre-teen and shoveling\moving it is just absolutely atrocious work. 

All of that as a primer but I will tell you my equation is very simple.  Dig a whole, as deep as the pot, maybe twice as wide, amend it with some soil.  You can amend it with some basic MG Garden soil, improve drainage, etc but don't go nuts, seriously.  Ultimately at the end of the day the plant will break out of your amendment in short order, so it's really not a big deal.  Plant, mulch, water, and enjoy.  My palms are happy, all happy.  They get drenched with water from me, and we all know sabals are water hogs, but same with the trachy and the rest.  I can not get rain for months which just happened until recently, dig down next to any of my palms and it will be sopping wet, like standing in water wet in that clay.  Guess what... they all explode in growth. 

When it comes to the areas where the dirt is compacted, and you can hose it, and the water doesn't even soak in it just runs off that is another story.  The basic hole you dig, once amended even basically, just mulch it.  Water it when you can and the mulch works wonders.   I have two birminghams way at the top of my driveway in a pair, on a hill, in this absolutely miserable dirt that soaks up NO water, small amended hole, mulched, and I don't water them as much as I would like, but they flourish and are growing in spades.  Conventional wisdom would look around, see the cracks in my ground up front just 10-20' away and think the earth is literally bone dry, which it is but the roots find their way to water.

The amend like crazy and go nuts crowd is the same as the zone police.  They're mostly wrong.  Do your own thing, have fun, and seriously, don't over complicate it because you don't have to.

[Ltapia]

8 hours ago, jwitt said:

I've seen robusta grow 3-5 years here unprotected. They die.  Seen some protected ones persist longer, but all eventually died.  I have never attempted robusta myself. 

Nothing wrong with protection.  For me, palm selection(hardiness/variety) and siting gives me ease of mind and allows me to sleep. 

I've killed more than I got.  

Way more!

Wow .. what palms died on you ? So the big one off Unser/ montano must be a Cali then .

 

how often do you water your Mediterranean ?

[Ltapia]

2 hours ago, tlow said:

This is one of the things that cracks me up about any hobbyist and in this case us palm people.  Everyone overcomplicates everything.   Don't waste your money, time, and effort amending dozens of cubic yards of soil (special circumstances certainly can exist) because by and large you do NOT have to.  I'll give you my example and experiences here.

I used to live in NW IL and the ground, when you dug into it, was well, top soil, it was decent dirt.  You can stick anything you want straight in and have success.  I've grown dozens of fruits trees, grapes, vegetables, vines, you name it, I grew it.  Water, some simple MG granule, maybe slow release for your particular plant you're growing and away you go.  Don't forget compost and mulch... keep it simple.

Fast forward to moving down to North Texas here in the DFW region.  I'm working on a dozen plus fruit trees of varying varieties, flowers, vegetables, and of course my palms.  I am 90% sabals (currently over 200+ in the ground with another 200+ more to go before I'm done), trachys, BxJ, and more than I care to remember and or list.  Our ground when I got here, I realized it just absolutely awful.  Like barren.. I couldn't imagine anything would live here.  It's a combination of either compacted dirt that has been here since the beginning of time which you cannot shovel though or normally, it's blue\grey clay.  It's awful.... I trenched a few hundred feet of drainage pipe last year, and when you hit the ground under the grass, you can just hear the sucking sound of water, and peeling clay away.   It weighs as much as a pre-teen and shoveling\moving it is just absolutely atrocious work. 

All of that as a primer but I will tell you my equation is very simple.  Dig a whole, as deep as the pot, maybe twice as wide, amend it with some soil.  You can amend it with some basic MG Garden soil, improve drainage, etc but don't go nuts, seriously.  Ultimately at the end of the day the plant will break out of your amendment in short order, so it's really not a big deal.  Plant, mulch, water, and enjoy.  My palms are happy, all happy.  They get drenched with water from me, and we all know sabals are water hogs, but same with the trachy and the rest.  I can not get rain for months which just happened until recently, dig down next to any of my palms and it will be sopping wet, like standing in water wet in that clay.  Guess what... they all explode in growth. 

When it comes to the areas where the dirt is compacted, and you can hose it, and the water doesn't even soak in it just runs off that is another story.  The basic hole you dig, once amended even basically, just mulch it.  Water it when you can and the mulch works wonders.   I have two birminghams way at the top of my driveway in a pair, on a hill, in this absolutely miserable dirt that soaks up NO water, small amended hole, mulched, and I don't water them as much as I would like, but they flourish and are growing in spades.  Conventional wisdom would look around, see the cracks in my ground up front just 10-20' away and think the earth is literally bone dry, which it is but the roots find their way to water.

The amend like crazy and go nuts crowd is the same as the zone police.  They're mostly wrong.  Do your own thing, have fun, and seriously, don't over complicate it because you don't have to.

I really appreciate the info lol yeah where I live it’s more of a Mesa with Sandy soil the water just goes right through pretty much So you’re just saying some soil with a lot of mulch And regular watering should be good do you fertilize ? And if so what do you use I mean I could dig a hole after watering the ground here  after couple days after and there’s still moisture in it so I guess it still holds a little bit.

[Fallen Munk]

12 hours ago, jwitt said:

It has bloomed the last 3 years and got seed that I harvested in April.

 

 

That little trachy has bloomed?  Impressive!  Mine has yet to bloom.

[Fallen Munk]

5 hours ago, tlow said:

The amend like crazy and go nuts crowd is the same as the zone police.  They're mostly wrong.  Do your own thing, have fun, and seriously, don't over complicate it because you don't have to.

Sometimes well meaning advice will bite you in the ass.  When I planted my filifera the common advice was they liked a sandy soil.  I have a thick layer of river loam in my front yard that I planted straight into.  They all died.  It was near impossible to give them enough water.  It could have certainly benefitted from organic amendments that held water and nutrients.  My backyard is mostly clay.  Totally different story.  I can plant almost anything into it without amendments and the plants go crazy once the roots hit that wet clay.  So if I only had soil that was like my backyard, I would believe in not amending ever.  If I only had soil like in my front yard, I'd recommend to always amend the heck out of it to increase the organic content.  

Combine that with specific needs of certain palm species and it gets even more complex.  I'm germinating some Hedyscepe canterburyana.  No way I could grow that in my native soil.  It requires a loose rich organic mix.  I'm going to have to order a cubic yard of compost to work into that corner of my yard, among other things.

 

[Collectorpalms]

9 hours ago, tlow said:

This is one of the things that cracks me up about any hobbyist and in this case us palm people.  Everyone overcomplicates everything.   Don't waste your money, time, and effort amending dozens of cubic yards of soil (special circumstances certainly can exist) because by and large you do NOT have to.  I'll give you my example and experiences here.

I used to live in NW IL and the ground, when you dug into it, was well, top soil, it was decent dirt.  You can stick anything you want straight in and have success.  I've grown dozens of fruits trees, grapes, vegetables, vines, you name it, I grew it.  Water, some simple MG granule, maybe slow release for your particular plant you're growing and away you go.  Don't forget compost and mulch... keep it simple.

Fast forward to moving down to North Texas here in the DFW region.  I'm working on a dozen plus fruit trees of varying varieties, flowers, vegetables, and of course my palms.  I am 90% sabals (currently over 200+ in the ground with another 200+ more to go before I'm done), trachys, BxJ, and more than I care to remember and or list.  Our ground when I got here, I realized it just absolutely awful.  Like barren.. I couldn't imagine anything would live here.  It's a combination of either compacted dirt that has been here since the beginning of time which you cannot shovel though or normally, it's blue\grey clay.  It's awful.... I trenched a few hundred feet of drainage pipe last year, and when you hit the ground under the grass, you can just hear the sucking sound of water, and peeling clay away.   It weighs as much as a pre-teen and shoveling\moving it is just absolutely atrocious work. 

All of that as a primer but I will tell you my equation is very simple.  Dig a whole, as deep as the pot, maybe twice as wide, amend it with some soil.  You can amend it with some basic MG Garden soil, improve drainage, etc but don't go nuts, seriously.  Ultimately at the end of the day the plant will break out of your amendment in short order, so it's really not a big deal.  Plant, mulch, water, and enjoy.  My palms are happy, all happy.  They get drenched with water from me, and we all know sabals are water hogs, but same with the trachy and the rest.  I can not get rain for months which just happened until recently, dig down next to any of my palms and it will be sopping wet, like standing in water wet in that clay.  Guess what... they all explode in growth. 

When it comes to the areas where the dirt is compacted, and you can hose it, and the water doesn't even soak in it just runs off that is another story.  The basic hole you dig, once amended even basically, just mulch it.  Water it when you can and the mulch works wonders.   I have two birminghams way at the top of my driveway in a pair, on a hill, in this absolutely miserable dirt that soaks up NO water, small amended hole, mulched, and I don't water them as much as I would like, but they flourish and are growing in spades.  Conventional wisdom would look around, see the cracks in my ground up front just 10-20' away and think the earth is literally bone dry, which it is but the roots find their way to water.

The amend like crazy and go nuts crowd is the same as the zone police.  They're mostly wrong.  Do your own thing, have fun, and seriously, don't over complicate it because you don't have to.

Sorry, If you are referring to me you are wrong. You can look at a plant that I planted, and look at the same planted a neighbor 5 houses down planted. Theirs is the same size after 20 years, and mine is 40 feet tall. Everyone's soil is different and requires a different approach. I too grew up in a place you could planted anything in the ground and it lived, In Indiana. But everything I planted straight into the ground here died, except sabals.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Collectorpalms