When should I give this field transplanted coconut osmocote fertilizer?

[PhilippineExpat]

My wife and I transplanted this coconut from my neighbor's land. It was doomed in it's old spot, so our neighbor let us give it a chance at life in our garden where our water tower used to be. Fortunately I managed to keep root damage minimal when digging it up, but there was still a little bit of damage. We plan to water it daily for 2 weeks then every other day for another 2 weeks, but I'm wondering when we can give it some fertilizer. This tree will give us both shade and privacy, so we want it to be as healthy and huge as possible. 

[Moose]

Water it for now, let the roots restablish themselves before fertilizing. A nice hefty ring around the base but not touching the trunk will be helpful.

Just my opinion

[PhilippineExpat]

51 minutes ago, Moose said:

Water it for now, let the roots restablish themselves before fertilizing. A nice hefty ring around the base but not touching the trunk will be helpful.

Just my opinion

Yeah I'm guessing waiting is better. I'm actually more worried about it tipping over because its root system is so small and shallow and its fronds are big. Maybe I should stake it somehow.

[palmfriend]

Hi,

that one looks nice! 

I am usually getting weak when my potted cocos nucifera - I always find them on the beach, gave up buying them ten years ago -

push their roots through the pot's bottom holes... In that moment I always still find a spot where I can squeeze them in... 

Here are two examples:

I have build a kind of wall/fence combination three months ago and with all those fan palms at this spot I thought why not throwing in a palmate type...?

I tried to be as cautious as possible when I pulled out the coconut palm from its pot while they were already some big roots sticking out. One or two got broken

but the main root ball remained intact, a mark on the new spear showed me two weeks later, everything went alright. 

Here, this one...

...placed at a cornered spot half a year ago, performs extremely well, too! 

I have learned when being down to Samoa, the Cook islands, Hawaii and Tahiti a while ago, Coconut palms can grow literally almost anywhere

as long as the surrounding conditions are fitting their needs - head, humidity, sunlight and of course over all temperature plus soil to a certain grade.

You are in a far better location than me regarding the cocos nucifera species, so if this transplanted one doesn't work out, just put a young sprouted one

in the same spot and you will have a new palm with the same size within a year!

So, no worries! However it turns out with this one - you will get your nice garden in no time!

Best regards from Okinawa -

Lars

 

 

[PhilippineExpat]

Right on! I'm really glad to hear your coconut showed signs of recovery so soon after transplanting even though you broke a couple of roots. I think I broke the ends off 3 or 4 roots on mine but overall I think the roots made it out okay. So far I've been very impressed with coconuts' hardiness from transplanting, but this is the biggest one I've tried by far. My wife and I also like to plant coconuts everywhere we can and we have 8 coconuts now. All our neighbors think we are crazy because we are working with such a small space lol. We will have a real coconut canopy in maybe 5-7 years. We try to give them as much space as we can, but I've seen coconuts growing as a triple in a neighbor's land and I've seen them growing up to the canopy in a dense mahogany forest, so I think they can work in just about any space. I notice vines around here can tend to dramatically stunt coconuts, though.

[NOT A TA]

Coconuts can take a surprising amount of root damage and come back. Your biggest drawback is that it's out in the open sun so you may have to put up with it looking bad for a season till the current fronds get replaced. Don't be surprised if the fronds start browning back (and don't cut off the partly browned ones to make it look better), it'll probably rebound just fine. If after a couple weeks there's half brown fronds just cut off the dry parts to improve appearance. I'd water daily 4-6 weeks if the soil drains well because of the lack of shade there.

[PhilippineExpat]

7 minutes ago, NOT A TA said:

Coconuts can take a surprising amount of root damage and come back. Your biggest drawback is that it's out in the open sun so you may have to put up with it looking bad for a season till the current fronds get replaced. Don't be surprised if the fronds start browning back (and don't cut off the partly browned ones to make it look better), it'll probably rebound just fine. If after a couple weeks there's half brown fronds just cut off the dry parts to improve appearance. I'd water daily 4-6 weeks if the soil drains well because of the lack of shade there.

Great! Thanks for the tips We can definitely water it daily for that long so we will do that. There is one frond my wife wanted to prune because it is hanging low and into the pathwalk, but we decided to use a rope to connect to the fence to keep it erect instead. Securing the frond had the surprise extra benefit of making the coconut more stable, too. And thanks for the warning about the fronds turning brown and looking bad because I would've felt disheartened. This coconut was growing under the thick branches of a big fruit tree and it was covered in vines, so this is its first taste of direct sunlight. I expect it to be a shock to the system, but hopefully the coconut will end up thriving and putting on a much thicker base.