lets talk about watering some more........

[trioderob]

so I still am not clear about a few things when it comes to watering palms.

in a place where the soil is sandy and water is expensive you want to

do it right !

it seems every option has problems.

flood with hose and you need to build soil berms to keep the water at the drip line and it takes alot of time.

flood irrigate and you just spent $$$$

use a drip line system and you need alot of emitters in a ring around the palm or the soil

dries out and you kill off areas of root.

also your pellet ferts wont like the drip

the best might be some kind of modified flood system with trenches to route the water from one tree to another.

maybe a fully underground system with buried pipes the have drain holes would be best

lots of ideas .............

Edited May 9, 2011 by trioderob

[sonoranfans]

In sandy soils, micro sprinklers work better than drip emitters. Also a slow soaker is a good choice in sandy soils. Drip emitters spread the water nicely in moderate drainage, but tend to be spotty in the root zone in sandy soils. In all soils there is a moisture plume that is determined by drainage and emission rate of a dripper source. At some point(high drainage), a micro sprinkler will be more efficient. In sandy soils you want complete wetting to take advantage of surface tension on the sand(retains water to some extent). Hoses are inefficient unless they are soakers and you run them slowly. I also have found sand is terrible for berms its too permeable and will quickly be eroded by rain. I bought some edging to put around my royals to keep water in the root zone and "water the well" with those thirsty monsters. I also planted my royals in a low spot(drainage way) since I knew they want lots of water... Then there is also the watering duration and frequency to consider....

Edited May 9, 2011 by sonoranfans

[trioderob]

"Drip emitters spread the water nicely in moderate drainage, but tend to be spotty in the root zone "

yea thats my point, if I use a dip emitter I will have a spotty watering pattern which will dry out some % of the roots

in addtion the palm plus fert will not get wet in those areas. also a negative is the tubing looks ugly in many cases.

good for a nursery but not so good for a front or back yard...........

[MattyB]

If you use a low pressure/drip system, you can choose from a number of different styles of emitters, from traditional drippers, to spitters, to micro sprayers, that will fit your soil and site specific needs. Sounds like you might want a micro sprayer near the base of each palm. This will dissolve your broadcasted granular fertilizer as well. Tubing can all be burried and hidden by mulch. Go to Hydroscape or Home Depot or Lowes and get the free literature that the drip irrigation company puts out and familiarize yourself with all of the differnt options.

Keep in mind, that as counter intuitive as it seems, if you just put a couple of drippers near a palm, it might not like it at first, when it's young, and you might need to suppliment with hose watering for the first season, but eventually those roots are going to go down and create a rootball deep down in that saturation zone. Your palms will be more drought tolerant and withstand Santa Ana conditions better. If you're mulching heavily capillary action will keep the soil as evenly moist as the palm needs it to be.

Your soil might seem sandy or mostly DG, but what is it like 2 feet down? I highly doubt that you have a solf pillow of sand 2 feet deep. At some point your soil probably gets more compacted and your subsurface saturation pattern will pancake out, accomodating a nice deep rootball. Same size rootball, just a different shape.

[trioderob]

matt-

my soil is about 1.5 - 2 foot of topsoil and then sand after that.

what happens much deeper I am not sure.

I do know something about drip systems so what I will do is modify a small area I have on drip.

I will pull the drip heads out and try micro sprinklers.

[MattyB]

Paul lives in your area and he has a silty sand for soil with excellent drainage. He uses the DIG brand PC Earthline Brown, w/ the built-in 1 GPH emitters every 18" and just snakes that all over the garden and then mulches over it so you never see it. When he fertilizes he throws it around and hand waters it in. The drip emitters seem to work fine for him. The palms are happy.

[paulgila]

the soil seems to vary greatly in this area,mine is silty becuase i live in a riverbed. bob weas has topsoil as far down as he has dug but he thinks it was all trucked-in when the homes were built.i dont think i have ever seen any sandy soil like that except in the beach areas.

[trioderob]

so if I understand this there is no better option for me than to use micro sprinklers

with buried water lines, mulch over the lines and then broadcast the granular fert over

the mulch.

you then set the water rate low so the soil will soak up the water over time

instead of draining down past the root zone ?

one last thing - with the micro sprinkler do I set them to spray at the drip line

or past it so the roots will grow in a larger circle zone ?

Edited May 9, 2011 by trioderob

[MattyB]

As far as fertilization goes you can use an in-line fertigation system also, but that's another topic.

You're gonna have to experiment and figure out what works for you, but I think you're wasting your water by spraying it all over the place. Get some water within a foot of the trunk and soak it thoroughly. Not way out, past the drip zone. You're overthinking it. If you have dense plantings, just lay down that DIG PC Earthline Brown. It'll saturate everything, sort of like a soaker hose. If you have a long distance between plantings and don't want to waste water by having a pre-installed emitter every 18", then use the poly-tube and you can install your own emitters as needed. Ultimately you'll probably end up using a combination of both methods. You can pop in micro sprayers for additional watering if you like, but it's usually not necessisary in most places.

Paul's right, I've never seen deep sand other than at the beach. Are you sure you have deep sand? Could it be DG? Where do you live? If you're on a hill then you've got rock underneath. Even Gary Levine, who lives on a pillow of DG waters with drippers and his palms are absolute monsters! I'm tellin ya, it's counter intuitive but it works. Check out Colin's left foot. He's standing on Gary's fertilizer pile. He's got 1 little spitter that sprays a circle about 12" in diameter off to one side of the palm, and that's it! The dirt on the other three sides of the palm are bone dry on the surface. And this is Hedescepy, in Escondido! That palm is well watered deep below, it doesn't care that the surface is dry.

[MattyB]

Look, Bill can't even believe it. He's gotta check it out on his hands and knees and dig down to see what's going on!

[trioderob]

thanks for the info Matt.

guess I was overthinking it.

will buy some micro sprinklers and see what happens over this summer

plus and minus of sandy soil:

plus - can grow triangle palms and dypsis decipiens like weeds

negative- uses alot of water

Edited May 9, 2011 by trioderob

[MattyB]

You can water a lot less than you think. I have 3 triangles planted straight into DG/basecourse on top of solid rock. I water them once every two weeks, in the hottest time of Summer, less frequently other times of the year.

Dypsis decipiens, planted on rock, once a week, even in the hottest times.

I just dug up a palm from Shon's yard and while digging I was able to investigate his soil a bit. It's no wonder that the palm was not doing so well. The soil is super heavy and held tons of moisture; too much actually. Their was not enough oxygen for the roots to be happy.

[Tassie_Troy1971]

Look, Bill can't even believe it. He's gotta check it out on his hands and knees and dig down to see what's going on!

Matty is right

I have been to Gary Levines place and his palms are Monsters . Gary uses one dripper per palm and capilary action soakes the water around and deep into the root zone ,i believe Gary waters every 4th day for 2 hrs .

[Gtlevine]

What was said is true, I use small concentrated spray or drip emitters on one side of the palm. I water every fourth day in the summer for two hours, capillary action will distribute the water deep and all around the root zone, spraying a lot of water on the surface is a waste because a lot of that water evaporates off the surface and is money gone. After the 2007 fires my palms and sprinkler system melted down, I did not water for one month and we had non stop santa ana conditions and temps over 90F. The deep root zone enabled the palm to survive this long period of time without water.

Gary

[LJG]

Don't believe everything Gary tells us. I think he sold his soul to the devil to grow larger palms then everyone else.

[BS Man about Palms]

Yup. But he MIGHT step up the copernicia watering we hope, eh?

[iwan]

The other advantage of the micro-sprayers is that they can be easily cleaned when (yes, when) they clog. I got tired of plants dying when drippers clogged with hard water and I didn't notice that the dripper was dead. There is also a bubbler head version of the micro-sprayer and I like those when I don't want to wet such a smaller area.

If you have any AG or irrigation supply houses down there, you will probably find them much cheaper than at the box stores. I paid about $.30 for my last batch.

[trioderob]

Gary does have some monster palms

seen them first hand

[sonoranfans]

If you live in california its best to listen to what those folks do, but you may not have exactly the same soil base. In florida with our sandy soils, the emitters dont work well. I had emitters in arizona where the soils are really low drainage and they worked great. The battle in plume formation is between capillary action(sideways) and gravity(down). Emitters give you a long tube shaped plume here in high drainage, not good. this is because gravity dominates capillary action in high drainage soils. In clay, which impedes the gravity induced vertical penetration, capillary action gives you a broad "mushroom" plume. Plume formation will be soil dependent, and if you have low humidity and lots of heat, evaporation will be a problem for micro sprayers. But near the coast with near condensing humidity at night, evaporation will be minimal overnight for a microsprayer. Most microsprayers deliver too fast, too many gph for clay soils that dont drain. You get lots of runoff, with wasted water and fertilizer.. In arizona I used multiple 2gph and watered for 5-6 hours once a week in summer. Penetration depth in clay depends on time, not flowrate. So I can say that anyone who waters for 2 hours and has great palms doesnt have low drainage soil. Two hours in my low drainage AZ clay wouldnt even water the deep root zone of a bismarckia, hyphaene, or brahea armata. Heavy clay means longer watering duration to get the depth and longer watering interval for a deep watering event and subsequent dry cycle. You can learn all this type of information at college horticultural extensions. Your particular soil WILL matter. If you have rock underneath, the drainage and watering requirements will be quite different than with sand under. If I had sand under would not use the same regimen as some one who had rock under. Rock under is almost like a big wide pot.

Edited May 10, 2011 by sonoranfans

[MattyB]

Thanks for sharing Tom. I enjoy these types of discussions.

So Triode,

You never said where you live. I know you're near SDSU but can you be more specific? I don't want to give away your exact location for privacy purposes, but can you describe it topographically or by a landmark so we know basically where you are? Your hill, your valley, canyon, stream, slope, plateau. Like when you say you've got DG or sand I'm thinking San Carlos area above Adobe Falls. Is there any way you can share it and still be comfortable? You never know, some Palmtalk member may be near you, have similar soil and can offer some specific expert advice. That's what's great about Palmtalk.

Can you post a pic of your soil? How about some sweet palm eye candy from your yard?

[Shon]

You can water a lot less than you think. I have 3 triangles planted straight into DG/basecourse on top of solid rock. I water them once every two weeks, in the hottest time of Summer, less frequently other times of the year.

Dypsis decipiens, planted on rock, once a week, even in the hottest times.

I just dug up a palm from Shon's yard and while digging I was able to investigate his soil a bit. It's no wonder that the palm was not doing so well. The soil is super heavy and held tons of moisture; too much actually. Their was not enough oxygen for the roots to be happy.

Your talking like a man with a paper ass.

[trioderob]

so is this true or not

sandy soil is good for palms in general where as clay soil is better suited to growing

a vegetable garden ?

[paulgila]

i guess thats a "no" matt.

[calyptrocalyx&licuala freck]

Great topic, Matty mentioned Mulch......

that one word is your biggest friend Esp

if ya have a sandy loom type of soil..

Cheers Mikey... Mulch mulch and more

Mulch 5 to 8 inches in a great help.

[BS Man about Palms]

I don't know what I'm doing... I'm just lucky..

[MattyB]

Shon, I don't know what that means. When I put the hedescepy in the ground here it told me thank you for saving it. Just kidding, your garden is rocking and looks really nice. But after I planted the hedescepy I had a small pile of your dirt and my wife and I were balling it up and making ash trays out of it. There's no air in your soil. It's so incredibly heavy I could barely lift a 15 gal pot

[paulgila]

shon,matt is saying your garden sucks. are you gonna stand for that?

[pogobob]

Thanks for sharing Tom. I enjoy these types of discussions.

So Triode,

You never said where you live. I know you're near SDSU but can you be more specific? I don't want to give away your exact location for privacy purposes, but can you describe it topographically or by a landmark so we know basically where you are? Your hill, your valley, canyon, stream, slope, plateau. Like when you say you've got DG or sand I'm thinking San Carlos area above Adobe Falls. Is there any way you can share it and still be comfortable? You never know, some Palmtalk member may be near you, have similar soil and can offer some specific expert advice. That's what's great about Palmtalk.

Can you post a pic of your soil? How about some sweet palm eye candy from your yard?

Come on Matt, stop messing with Paul and admit you and Triode are one and the same person!

[Tassie_Troy1971]

Aww Bob

Don't care who is who all i know is that i want Ken back !

[sonoranfans]

you could do a perk test of sorts to evaluate your soil. I do it like this: dig a hole 18" wide and 2' deep and fill it with water. Then time how long it takes to drain to 1/2 depth and all the way down. Just to give you an idea, my unammended soil in AZ took 12 hours to drain in some spots, less in others. if it took more than 12, I knew that even ammending it was not going to be good without a major excavation project. If I do that test here in florida, I have some spots that will drain in 20 minutes, others that drain in as much as 2-3 hours. The interesting part of this discussion is that your drainage may change depending on the spot as the soil changes in construction areas, who knows what they buried or used for fill. Here in florida they use clay up near the house and sand away from it to stabilize the slab, probably against errosion. And that may mean that the best site for a particular palm with deep roots can be determined by a perk test. If you have a property with lots of sloping, you have another variable with big impact, runoff. MattyB has alot of sloping from what I can see in the pics. Im sure Matty has learned alot from growing on sloped ground. My guess would be that the "dry loving" species(eg bismarckias, hyphaene, braheas, livistonas, dypsis decipiens) do better than "wet lovers" on the slopes. In the case of sloped ground you want to trap water to prevent water and fertilizer runoff, so edging or moisture impenetrable berms on the low side could be useful.

[LJG]

I always heard nice things about Shon's garden. Now I can skip the visit. Sounds like it sucks and he grows in crappy soil. Too bad. He seemed like a nice guy.

[trioderob]

Thanks for sharing Tom. I enjoy these types of discussions.

So Triode,

You never said where you live. I know you're near SDSU but can you be more specific? I don't want to give away your exact location for privacy purposes, but can you describe it topographically or by a landmark so we know basically where you are? Your hill, your valley, canyon, stream, slope, plateau. Like when you say you've got DG or sand I'm thinking San Carlos area above Adobe Falls. Is there any way you can share it and still be comfortable? You never know, some Palmtalk member may be near you, have similar soil and can offer some specific expert advice. That's what's great about Palmtalk.

Can you post a pic of your soil? How about some sweet palm eye candy from your yard?

Come on Matt, stop messing with Paul and admit you and Triode are one and the same person!

good lord

[Shon]

I don't put a lot of stock in a persons opinion that has geraniums in his garden. We also have a long list of customers coming back to the nursery after getting Matt's "advice".

[trioderob]

I don't put a lot of stock in a persons opinion that has geraniums in his garden. We also have a long list of customers coming back to the nursery after getting Matt's "advice".

I am picking up on some bad "vibes" here.

all Matt stated was that you have poor soil at your place.

if it is thick clay then it IS bad soil.

whats the beef ?

Edited May 11, 2011 by trioderob

[MattyB]

You should try some geraniums Shon. They go well with my Carpoxylon, Satakentia and Pinanga ceasia don't they.

[paulgila]

i am waiting for triode to answer mattyb's questions after matt was so kind as to give all that FREE advice that anyone with NORMAL feelings wouldve appreciated enough to return the sentiment by answering a few simple questions.

[MattyB]

Paul, Triode didn't want to post his location publicly due to the fact that thieves, theives, theefs, bad people may be patrolling here. But from what I understand, he has similar soil formation to what you see on the cliffs on the north side of University Avenue as you get out towards La Mesa. Like if you look at that bank behind A-1 Party Rentals @ Massachusets, oh well, I guess they concreted that over, but next door the Chinese restaurant w/ the big red facade or Shirleys Restaurant....check out that bank and I think that's what Triode has. From what I remember it's lots of round river rocks packed in ancient river sediment. So when he says he thinks he's got deep sand, he may be correct. What's Jessie's soil like?

[Shon]

No they don't. You can grow whatever you want you still live in Spring Valley. That's probably where you learned to spell so well.

[MattyB]

Don't you live in a retirement community? Maybe your soil is all bogged down from all those poopy Depends.

[MattyB]

I've been made aware that my posts might have been taken the wrong way. I want to publicly apologize to Shon, I was joking and meant no offense. Sorry to take the snarky humor too far. Shon's garden is really nice and he was very generous to allow me to come dig up a free palm. Thanks Shon.