Help Me Make My Windmills Awesome :-)

[Georgia Mike]

Good day fellow palm lovers!

First, I would like to introduce myself as this is my first post.  My name is Mike and I am just an average guy who loves tropical areas, so now that my family and I are settled in central Georgia, having palm trees put in was a must.  Aside from genuinely wanting to know how to make our two Windmill palms (trachecarpus fortunei?) look awesome, my hobbies include Going to warm beach locations with my wife, cars and amateur astronomy/astrophotography. I know very little about palm trees, and hope to glean some knowledge!

We had our two windmills put in last year around April/May (Zone 8).  They are each about 8ft or so talI at the tops of the trunks. When they were put in, the guys used a base of sand, then some good quality soil before covering them the rest of the way with the native Georgia clay. I did my best to water them 2-3x per week for the first month or so, then scaled back to once per week (plus a lot of rain in the summer).  Unfortunately, they are planted where they receive sun for almost the whole day. 

Although one of them grew some flowers recently (male I think), the fronds on both of them looked pretty rough at of this point in the year.  I say "looked" because I cut off the majority of the damaged fronds (they are both pretty bare at the moment).  

- I got some Miracle Gro Shake and Feed last year, but have no idea how much (or if I am using enough per time) to use during the quarterly feedings- is there a "per foot of tree height" guideline?

- Also, I bought some Southern Ag Palm nutritional spray and some epsom salt but have not yet applied them because I do not want to use too much or too little without a palm expert's advice. 

- I also purchased some 24" planting rings (band aid until we have planters built around them) to ensure that when they are watered/fed, the water doesn't just run off into the grass without ever getting to the root ball.  The ground surrounding them is covered with pine straw, will use mulch when  we get the planters.  The trunks are about 7-8" in diameter.

How many gallons per watering should I be giving them, how many times per week? How much of the fertilizer should I give them quarterly? How often should I include the nutritional spray and/or epsom salt and how much of them should I use based on 8-9ft tall at the trunk? 

This is a lot of questions, but like the subject says, I want our windmills to look awesome :-) 

Attached pictures of what the damaged fronds look like, hopefully it will be of help.  Thank you all very much in advance, looking for to learning.

 

Mike

[Chester B]

Hi Mike, welcome to Palmtalk.

I'll answer you as best I can, I live in Oregon so I'll speak to what I know and let others (hopefully some locals ) chip in.

So your palms have been in a year so that's great.  Big ones can take 2 or 3 years before they are totally settled in, so you may or may not get flowers.  In my climate we get no real rain during summer, so I water mine maybe every 2 weeks and I just put the hose at the base and let it run for 10 minutes or so.  These palms come from a naturally wet climate so it's kind of hard to overwater them.  If you're getting regular rainfall you may not need to water them all that much, they are actually pretty drought tolerant when established.  Signs of drought stress can show up as browning tips and the leaflets will fold closed when they are very stressed.

As far as the fertilizer the local palm grower by me says "they take what they need" he feels that you can't overfertilize but you obviously don't want to be overdoing it.  I would recommend getting a palm specific fertilizer for your area.  I use PalmGain and a lot of other people on here do.  The instructions are pretty straight forward.  Other ones I have seen mentioned are Carl Pool Palm fertilizer and Florikan Palm fertilizer.  If that is the Miracle Grow Palm one it looks like 1.5 cups per 8 ft tree every 3 months, so I would only fertilize twice per year, once in early spring and once in summer.

Okay so here is the not so great news, those fronds you cut off were not damaged they just had a little yellowing.  These are kind of messy palms, and especially after winter they tend to have some yellowing and tatty fronds.  Unless the fronds are brown and totally desiccated you shouldn't remove them especially on palms that have been transplanted recently.  The palms were still using those fronds not only as an energy store but they were still photosynthesizing.  So now you've set them back, and it will take longer for them to really adjust and start growing at their optimal rate.  You haven't killed them or anything like that, I just expect you won't see much growth this year.  If you had used the palm fertilizer and applied the Southern AG as a foliar spray, within a month or so those fronds would probably have greened up nicely.  And as far as bent tips and things like that,  these are windmill palms they always look kind of messy. 

So for the epsom salts - I have no idea, I don't use them, but I would think between your slow release and the foliar spray you should be covered for all you need.

Hopefully this helps.  Here are photos of some palms in my front, you can see the toll winter took on them this year.  Between being encased in ice and high winds they don't look the best, but the fronds are still functioning for the plants so they will remain.  I applied fertilizer a week ago so some of the yellowing will improve.  I have more palms that look great after winter, so not everyone is identical and there is a lot of variation.  I always see people with pictures of their fortuneis with nice stiff fronds that look great,  I can say I have about 40 of them planted in my yard and there is a great deal of variation among them as they have come from different sources throughout the years and I don't have a single one like that.  Some get discolored tips more than others, some are light green others are much darker.

So let's see the photos of the actual palms?

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by Chester B

[Chester B]

Here’s some photos of three I planted after their first winter in the ground. Between the Palmgain and the Southern AG foliar spray these fronds did turn green again. 
First photo is early spring, second that summer. These were pretty stressed palms when I bought them so they took a while to really settle in. Many of these fronds are still on them today. 

Edited May 6, 2021 by Chester B

[Georgia Mike]

  On 5/6/2021 at 4:51 PM, Chester B said:

Here’s some photos of three I planted after their first winter in the ground. Between the Palmgain and the Southern AG foliar spray these fronds did turn green again. 
First photo is early spring, second that summer. These were pretty stressed palms when I bought them so they took a while to really settle in. Many of these fronds are still on them today. 

Really appreciate the advice, and thank you for the warm welcome!

Here is a pic of them shortly after they were put in. 

They both grew quite a few fronds since last year, but I got concerned and trimmed off all the ugly yellow/brown ones today... so they look pretty barren right now ( a little embarrassed to post a today pic lol).  The one on the garage side has neat little flowers growing on it.  

 

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[Georgia Mike]

SO basically, if I understand correctly, by needlessly trimming off the yellow/brown fronds I have set myself back near square one(?) but have not unwittingly sentenced them to death (Thank goodness!).  Based on what you said about the fertilizer, I have not given them nearly enough of the slow-release palm stuff (Miracle Gro Palm).  Assume I should start there?  

 

Thanks again!

 

Mike

[Chester B]

It looks like they still have a decent amount of fronds on them so that's good.  If it were me I wouldn't trim them for a couple years, only the spent flower stalks.  You can actually leave the the old brown fronds to form a skirt - most people don't but I like the way it looks.  I'm sure with your warm weather they will look pretty good by the end of summer.

I planted the ones in my first photo in August of 2016, and that winter was a horrible one.  By spring they looked awful, bent, broken and tattered fronds.  My wife was harassing, - I mean mentioning how bad they looked so I gave them quite a haircut that year.  It took two years before I felt they really started looking good again, and in that time there was almost no noticeable change in height.  Now that I leave them alone  they're doing much better.

 

[Chester B]

  On 5/6/2021 at 5:51 PM, Georgia Mike said:

SO basically, if I understand correctly, by needlessly trimming off the yellow/brown fronds I have set myself back near square one(?) but have not unwittingly sentenced them to death (Thank goodness!).  Based on what you said about the fertilizer, I have not given them nearly enough of the slow-release palm stuff (Miracle Gro Palm).  Assume I should start there?  

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I think that's a good plan.  They're tough plants so I know you'll have success.

[Georgia Mike]

  On 5/6/2021 at 5:53 PM, Chester B said:

It looks like they still have a decent amount of fronds on them so that's good. 

 

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That picture was from last year.  As of today, they each have about 5 fronds with fresh spears growing out of the trunk-tops.  They look pretty naked but the fronds that are left are nice and green lol. At least I know now not to get discouraged and trim them when they start looking rough.

[PricklyPearSATC]

You had large transplants put it.   I would be cautious about fertilizing with nitrogen this year, as they are still getting establishing. 

Do the foliar spray, (nitrogen on the fronds is OK) epsom salts, but give minimal nitrogen products in the ground.
I believe palmgain is organic, but it hard to find.  Also trachycarpus do better in a bit of shade in the southern US. 

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by PricklyPearSATC

[PricklyPearSATC]

  On 5/6/2021 at 5:41 PM, Georgia Mike said:

 

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If the image is of your house, the palms will obtain some nitrogen when you fertilize your lawn. 
Avoid weed and feed products in turf grass fertilizer. 

[aegean]

  On 5/6/2021 at 5:51 PM, Georgia Mike said:

SO basically, if I understand correctly, by needlessly trimming off the yellow/brown fronds I have set myself back near square one(?) but have not unwittingly sentenced them to death (Thank goodness!).  Based on what you said about the fertilizer, I have not given them nearly enough of the slow-release palm stuff (Miracle Gro Palm).  Assume I should start there?  

 

Thanks again!

 

Mike

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Even if you cut off every single frond you won't kill it. You just shouldn't do this regularly. 

I know that many experts recommend to cut only brown fronds that have completely dried up and say that palms grow best this way and that they pull out the nutrients from old fronds to build new ones. While this is the consensus and sounds logical there always is some controversial discussion. What if the limiting factor for growth in the summer heat is not photosynthesis, but water and nutrients that are necessary to keep the fronds alive ?  It's certainly a lot of water that is being evaporated from palm fronds in full sun in the summer heat.

My experience is if you don't overprune your palms and always leave a good amount of fronds on them, you don't harm them.  Your two Trachycarpus from the picture look a little bit overpruned. You should leave some more fronds at least. 

I followed the experts' advice many years because I didn't want to harm my palms, bit I never really liked the look. 

Now that Paysandisia archon and the red palm weevil have arrived, I prune all my palms once a year in late winter for practical reasons. It's simply much easier to spray them with insecticides, if they have less fronds. It's only necessary to treat the spear and the petiole bases of green fronds.

I like the look much more now and I didn't notice any negative effect on my palms, although I cut off many, many green fronds. 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by aegean

[Georgia Mike]

  On 5/7/2021 at 2:48 AM, aegean said:

Even if you cut off every single frond you won't kill it. You just shouldn't do this regularly. 

I know that many experts recommend to cut only brown fronds that have completely dried up and say that palms grow best this way and that they pull out the nutrients from old fronds to build new ones. While this is the consensus and sounds logical there always is some controversial discussion. What if the limiting factor for growth in the summer heat is not photosynthesis, but water and nutrients that are necessary to keep the fronds alive ?  It's certainly a lot of water that is being evaporated from palm fronds in full sun in the summer heat.

My experience is if you don't overprune your palms and always leave a good amount of fronds on them, you don't harm them.  Your two Trachycarpus from the picture look a little bit overpruned. You should leave some more fronds at least. 

I followed the experts' advice many years because I didn't want to harm my palms, bit I never really liked the look. 

Now that Paysandisia archon and the red palm weevil have arrived, I prune all my palms once a year in late winter for practical reasons. It's simply much easier to spray them with insecticides, if they have less fronds. It's only necessary to treat the spear and the petiole bases of green fronds.

I like the look much more now and I didn't notice any negative effect on my palms, although I cut off many, many green fronds. 

 

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Awesome thank you very much, I really appreciate the warm welcome and friendly advice! I am already learning quite a bit just from what y'all have written here.  They have been in about a year, so I believe they are established.  I was not aware that they are naturally messy-looking, could not figure out why there were so many wilted and yellow/brown fronds- of course every picture we see online of Windmill palms shows beautiful green fronds with no wilting so I thought I was doing something wrong lol! This growing season they will get lots of love and water, especially through the summer and into the fall when it is hot... and I will treat them to quarterly slow-release and monthly applications of the nutrition spray.  We are going to have planters installed around them with mulch so they will not have to compete with any other vegetation for moisture. Being sort of a nerd by nature and loving the look of palms, learning how to successfully grow these babies really feeds my OCD.  Wish I had known that they prefer some shade, but since it is too late to do anything about that,  will do my best to keep them happy!

 

[WSimpson]

Welcome to the forum Mike  . 

You can let the old fronds form a shirt which is what I do on some of my Trachys . In the picture below notice the dead fronds that are forming a skirt . I like the look of pruning off the dead fronds and the skirt look too . 

The skirt look in the picture isn't too apparent now but in a few years it should be more obvious   . 

Will

 

[Georgia Mike]

  On 5/7/2021 at 3:58 PM, Will Simpson said:

Welcome to the forum Mike  . 

You can let the old fronds form a shirt which is what I do on some of my Trachys . In the picture below notice the dead fronds that are forming a skirt . I like the look of pruning off the dead fronds and the skirt look too . 

The skirt look in the picture isn't too apparent now but in a few years it should be more obvious   . 

Will

 

 

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Thank you Will- That looks really cool! Hope mine look like that someday.

[WSimpson]

If you look into the upper middle of the tree you can see a lot of seed that is forming . 

[WSimpson]

I can teach you how to defiber your Trachys  one day . It's my profession lol .

Will

 

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