PLANTING PALMS

[LilikoiLee]

We must to be doing something very wrong when we plant our palms. About 30% of them end up tilted even though we become very type A during the planting process. We check and recheck the palm from every angle, wet the soil incrementally as we fill the hole, and tap the soil down very carefully.

My husband thinks that they will eventually straighten themselves, but most of the tilting seems to happen in the weeks and months after planting. I have also seen a lot of tilted mature palms whose tilting is NOT toward the sun or away from a building or another palm.

What are we doing wrong?

Also, what is the best way to plant a palm that has a curved trunk? It is best to plant it so the crownshaft is straight up or some other way?

Thanks, Lee

[Palm Guy]

Ive had the same thing occur. Could be the soil settling beneath the palm or one or two palm roots pushing or anchoring the palm down in one direction.

[Rusty on Pine Is.]

Lee, how large are the palms you planted?

Rusty

[LilikoiLee]

Lee, how large are the palms you planted?

Rusty

Rusty, The palms have been of various sizes, but most of our palms are 5 or 7 gal. Now that you bring it up, I haven't noticed this happening with 3 gal palms.

Palm Guy, The tilt in the palms we planted early on could surely have been caused by the soil not being properly tamped before inserting the palm, but we've been very careful about tamping for the last six months. Hadn't considered roots; most our our palms are planted at least 7 feet from anything of significant size, but we've cleared the land recently and they may be bumping into large roots from previous trees.

Thanks for your help.

Lee

[DoomsDave]

Lee,

What palms are they?

tilting might not matter for a curvy palm like an acrhontophoenix or coconut, but it will matter a lot for a Syagrus romanzoffiana . . . .

Let us know.

We live to help with palm problems, etc.

[Zeeth]

Lee,

What palms are they?

tilting might not matter for a curvy palm like an acrhontophoenix or coconut, but it will matter a lot for a Syagrus romanzoffiana . . . .

Let us know.

We live to help with palm problems, etc.

I think that Syagrus romanzoffiana looks best when curved properly (I.e. not just pushed over and allowed to grow straight, this makes angles. More of a gradual, coconutty curve). I think that that since they are mainly planted as a "coconut lookalike", the curve makes them like SOMEWHAT to their potential... (Whoever maintains the Wikipedia article on coconut keeps putting back in that the queen palm "is a more cold hardy palm that is very similar to the coconut" even though I keep taking it out. I do give them credit though, because they traced my article editing history and saw the drastic changes I made to Beccariophoenix (It was 1 sentence before I got at it), and added into the coconut article "A recently discovered palm, Beccariophoenix alfredii from Madagascar is nearly identical to the Coconut, even more than the Queen palm. It is quite cold-hardy and makes the perfect Coconut-lookalike for many cooler areas all over the world." maybe people will start buying these more instead of the already thoroughly overplanted queens... Ok, I'm done with my rant now)

[bgl]

Lee,

I wonder if by wetting the soil incrementally throughout the planting process, you're in fact adding too much water. I actually never add any water when I plant anything. My preferred time to plant is when I can expect some rain, so I just plant the palm, compact the soil as hard as I can, and then hope for rain!

Bo-Göran

[Walter John]

You don't walk with a lean do you ?

[LilikoiLee]

Thanks everyone, for the replies. Got to be up at 4:30 am tomorrow, so I don't have time to reply to you all tonight, except to Wal: Please KEEP UP the CRACK UPS!

Lee

[LilikoiLee]

Thanks again for all the help. I have more time tonight to respond.

Dave - here is a partial list of our tilting palms:

Two Clinostigma samoense. These were planted very recently and are about 5' tall.

Two Dypsis decaryi. These were some of our earliest plantings so we probably didn't do a good job, but I am dreading how they will look when they get tall. They're only about 3' right now and both have glaring tilts.

A Syagrus romanzoffiana. I tied it off to the trunk of a nearby tree a few months ago to see if I could encourage it to straigten. I protected the stem with some some soft padding. Hope this wasn't a bad idea. The palm has grown quite a bit since the tying off. Adjacent plants have all filled in SO IF the stem is still tilted it is thankfully now obscured by the other plants. I'll have to check it out.

Two of our three Archontophoenix cunninghamiama. Two are very tall (35'?) and one is only about 4'. The two talls ones were about 4' tall when we planted them close to 14 years ago. (I picked them up as seedlings from a park on Oahu and they lived in pots for at least 5 years.) Only one of the tall ones tilts, and unfortunately it tilts serverly; the other is OK. The shorter A. cunninghamiana also tilts. It was about 1' when I put it in the ground VERY CAREFULLY so it would not tilt like the big one.

One of our three Wodyetia bifurcata, which are all planted in a raised bed containing lots of rock The bed was on the property and probably dates back to when it was ranch land. It may have even originally been a rock wall that filled in over the years.

There are others, but as I am writing this I am wondering if our tilt problem might have something to do with the fact that our property has a very rocky foundation and is caused by the shifting of deep rocks. We have minor earthquakes from time to time and there is probably lots of shifting going on that we don't even notice. The decaryi are in a particularly unstable area. The problem with this theory is that it doesn't explain why Bo-goran doesn't have the same problem.

On to Bo's suggestion about too much water.: The watering before placing the palm in the hole and then incrementally as soil is added was suggested by a source, which although I can't pinpoint at this moment, seemed very knowledgeable. I found in while doing research on how to get plants vertically straight. It seems to work very well while we're planting the palms. The shifting happens later - anywhere from a day to weeks. The problem hasn't gotten any worse since we started the incremental watering process but I think we'll try experimenting. We've still got a few groups of the same palms to got in the ground so we can vary our watering strategy on them.

Incidentally, Bo-Goran, we can never tell when it's going to rain. Some days (even weeks) it clouds up of badly and even starts sprinkling so that you'd swear a storm was about to hit, but then it doesn't rain. And, don't you face the same possible issue of too much water if the rain comes down heavy?

I would greatly appreciate any other thoughts anyone has on this, including my shifting rocks theory. I want our palms to as stand tall and as regal as they are meant to.

Many thanks, Lee

[Kris]

Dear Lee

Here are some visuals of the flooding operation after planting this Cidp on a peak summer evening ! And flooding helps all the soil to settle down without any air pockets..

And by the way the top soil levels itself & i do not need to water this palm for the next 4 to 5 days !

Lots of love,

Kris

[bgl]

Lee,

"Heavy rain" as far as I'm concerned is only when we get 3-4 inches or more overnight, and even though that happens from time to time it's still relatively unusual. More normal is half an inch or so overnight, and I don't believe I ever had a problem with a palm I planted. I.e. that it got "too much rain" immediately after I planted it.

Bo-Göran

[Gbarce]

Maybe the palms are growing towards the light source. Is there more sun exposure to one side versus the other?

Maybe there is are more tall obstructions in a part of your garden?

[DoomsDave]

Thanks again for all the help. I have more time tonight to respond.

Dave - here is a partial list of our tilting palms:

Two Clinostigma samoense. These were planted very recently and are about 5' tall.

Two Dypsis decaryi. These were some of our earliest plantings so we probably didn't do a good job, but I am dreading how they will look when they get tall. They're only about 3' right now and both have glaring tilts.

A Syagrus romanzoffiana. I tied it off to the trunk of a nearby tree a few months ago to see if I could encourage it to straigten. I protected the stem with some some soft padding. Hope this wasn't a bad idea. The palm has grown quite a bit since the tying off. Adjacent plants have all filled in SO IF the stem is still tilted it is thankfully now obscured by the other plants. I'll have to check it out.

Two of our three Archontophoenix cunninghamiama. Two are very tall (35'?) and one is only about 4'. The two talls ones were about 4' tall when we planted them close to 14 years ago. (I picked them up as seedlings from a park on Oahu and they lived in pots for at least 5 years.) Only one of the tall ones tilts, and unfortunately it tilts serverly; the other is OK. The shorter A. cunninghamiana also tilts. It was about 1' when I put it in the ground VERY CAREFULLY so it would not tilt like the big one.

One of our three Wodyetia bifurcata, which are all planted in a raised bed containing lots of rock The bed was on the property and probably dates back to when it was ranch land. It may have even originally been a rock wall that filled in over the years.

There are others, but as I am writing this I am wondering if our tilt problem might have something to do with the fact that our property has a very rocky foundation and is caused by the shifting of deep rocks. We have minor earthquakes from time to time and there is probably lots of shifting going on that we don't even notice. The decaryi are in a particularly unstable area. The problem with this theory is that it doesn't explain why Bo-goran doesn't have the same problem.

On to Bo's suggestion about too much water.: The watering before placing the palm in the hole and then incrementally as soil is added was suggested by a source, which although I can't pinpoint at this moment, seemed very knowledgeable. I found in while doing research on how to get plants vertically straight. It seems to work very well while we're planting the palms. The shifting happens later - anywhere from a day to weeks. The problem hasn't gotten any worse since we started the incremental watering process but I think we'll try experimenting. We've still got a few groups of the same palms to got in the ground so we can vary our watering strategy on them.

Incidentally, Bo-Goran, we can never tell when it's going to rain. Some days (even weeks) it clouds up of badly and even starts sprinkling so that you'd swear a storm was about to hit, but then it doesn't rain. And, don't you face the same possible issue of too much water if the rain comes down heavy?

I would greatly appreciate any other thoughts anyone has on this, including my shifting rocks theory. I want our palms to as stand tall and as regal as they are meant to.

Many thanks, Lee

Most of your palms will be better off kept straight, no doubt about it. And, an obviously tipsy Archontophoenix looks bad, no two ways about it.

What kind of soil do you have? I've never seen the kind of problem you describe here with our infamously heavy clay.

[Kim]

Do the palms all tilt in the same direction? Do you ever have high winds?

Do you find cigarette butts and empty beer bottles on the ground around the leaning palms? Do groups of youths in Hawaii participate in palm tipping? (sort of like cow tipping?) (yes, I'm joking)

Maybe a photo or two would help?

[MattyB]

I've noticed that if the soil is too high on one side of the plant (which happens alot on my hillside with the erosion) then it'll lean away from the high soil side just as if it's sensing another plant next to it. Check your soil level and make sure it's where the trunk meets the roots.

[Peter Pacific]

Hi Lee, well, everyone has something to say I hope you find your answer. In Florida we had sink holes, I don't know if that's a problem in your area. Here, in Guatemala, aside from the tremors which shake things up a bit, we have crabs that eat the roots and I've had to straighten out a few things growing in the garden, although I can't say they were 5' palms! What kind of critters you have around there? Good Luck, Peter

[LilikoiLee]

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies. It seems there may be a combination of factors at work - see the following.

Eugenio: No tall obstructions. The palms tilt in different directions, but a majority of them tilt down hill, which is also the direction of the strong afternoon sun so that may be a partial factor. Partial, because all of the palms are in the same sun/slope situation, but most of them don't tilt.

Kim: See note to Eugenio about tilting downhill. We rarely have high winds. In response to your more creative suggestions: No palm or cow tilting going on here. Only bottles we find are the wine bottles we’ve emptied ourselves. I’ve been away from my garden for a few days. Will take and post some photos next week.

MattyB: You may be on to something. We’re very careful with the soil level when we plant, but most of the garden is sloped. Perhaps soil is being washed down hill and accumulating on the upside of the palm’s trunks. I’ll check it out.

Peter: We don’t have sink holes or crabs, but we do have slugs that burrow in the soil during the day. Haven’t heard that they eat roots, but it’s worth investigating.

Dave: We use a mix of 2 parts lava cinder and 1 part compost. DypsisDean, who lives in the same area as we do, uses only cinder. I've have to check with him to see if has a tilting problem. I think Bo-Goran uses cinder as well, but he's on the other side of the island and does not have as severe a slope as we do.

Wal: I only walk with a lean when we empty the wine bottles at which time I don’t even notice that the palms tilt.

Thanks again!

Lee